“The forcible transfer of journalist Comlan Hugues Sossoukpé by Côte d’Ivoire to Benin, despite his refugee status in Togo, sends a worrying message to journalists across the region,” said Moussa Ngom, CPJ’s Francophone Africa representative. “He must be released immediately and unconditionally. Such aggressive, transnational tactics illustrate a cross-border collaboration to muzzle a critical journalist.”

On July 14, 2025, a judge at Benin’s Court for the Repression of Economic Offences and Terrorism (CRIET) upheld Sossoukpè’s detention in the southern city of Ouidah, pending a judicial investigation on charges of inciting rebellion, inciting hatred and violence, harassing through electronic communication, and apology for terrorism, according to a copy of the decision seen by CPJ.

Sossoukpè was in Côte d’Ivoire to cover a government conference when he was arrested. He has been living in Togo since 2019 and has held refugee status there since receiving threats in Benin, where he is from, related to his work.

Sossoukpè told Maximin Pognon, his lawyer, who spoke to CPJ, that four people identifying themselves as Ivorian law enforcement officers and a fifth as a “colonel of the gendarmerie” asked him to respond to a summons. But Sossoukpè recognized two of them as Beninese police officers, Pognon said.

Sossoukpè said he demanded that they bring him before a judge, which they agreed to, but did not. Instead, they seized his phone and computer, took him briefly to an Ivorian law enforcement headquarters, and then escorted him aboard a plane that took him to Benin.

Two people close to the case who asked not to be named for privacy reasons said that during the days before his arrest, Sossoukpè had alerted his friends that there were kidnapping plans against him.

CPJ’s calls and WhatsApp messages to Andy Kouassi, public relations director of the Ivorian ministry of communication, and to Wilfried Léandre Houngbédji, spokesperson for the Beninese government, as well as CPJ’s email to the Ivorian gendarmerie, went unanswered.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Staff.

Phonethip Xaypanya, a 30-year-old woman who goes by the nickname Jay Thip, which in Lao means “elder sister Thip,” is accused of absconding with more than U.S. $16.4 million, including 20 billion Lao kip (U.S. $1.3 million), 400 million Thai baht (U.S. $11 million), and U.S. $4 million, according to the Lao Ministry of Public Security.

She allegedly accumulated some of the money by promising her victims high rates of return on their cash deposits.

Thai police said they arrested Jay Thip and her husband, Anousith Phoutthavong, 34, on July 29 at a hotel in Pathum Thany province, Thailand, for overstaying their visas. They were returned to Laos two days later. Immigration police records indicate that the couple left Laos by land on June 29 via the First Lao-Thai Friendship bridge.

By the end of June, more than 5,000 people who said they were victims of her scheme filed complaints with Lao police. Officials say they expect many more defrauded citizens to come forward. Jay Thip denies that she defrauded people. 

“We, the Public Security Ministry, have received a lot of complaints from the public, [and] we’re going to forward this information to the investigation department,” a ministry official told RFA Monday. “She hasn’t been formally charged with any crime yet.”

The official went on to say that the ministry could not disclose much information yet about the arrest. 

“The woman was just handed over to us yesterday, so we’re going to deal with her according to the law,” he said.

A criminal lawyer said that if Jay Thip is found guilty, she would face at least 10 years in prison and be ordered to pay back the money. 

“First and foremost, the police will be investigating and interrogating her to find out how much money she stole when she defrauded people,” said the attorney, who declined to be named. “The police may have to sell all of her assets and property, like cars and homes to pay back her customers.”

An official with the Lao Prosecutor’s Office agreed, but said that tracking down her wealth could prove difficult.

“The question is, where is all the money?” he said. “It might be kept abroad, but how can we bring it back, or it may have been converted to gold and diamonds that are hidden somewhere else.”

Jay Thip claims to have many businesses, including a shop that sells gold and diamond jewelry, and she posts photos of the expensive merchandise daily online. Her most lucrative business is an investment scheme that accepts cash deposits of at least 50 million kip ($3.27) from customers and promises a monthly interest rate of 30% in return. 

She also posts stories on her Facebook page saying that she often wins the lottery and has photos showing off her luxury goods in an effort to build trust with current and prospective investors.

Jay Thip denied to Thai reporters that she was in possession of 400 million baht at the time of her arrest. 

“To electronically transfer that lump sum across the border, people have to have a lot of documents and proof,” she said. “Now, to answer the question of why I came to Thailand, my husband and I came here to deal with the problems that have occurred and why they’ve occurred. And another reason is that over there [in Laos], I fear for my safety.”

Call for justice

Meanwhile, Laotians who say they fell prey to Jay Thip’s scheme are clamoring for retribution.

“I want my money back, but the problem is that in Laos legal procedures are not open to the public,” said a person who declined to be identified. “I just want her to be responsible for the debt. Is she going to pay back or not? I want to see the police enforcing the law to the fullest extent.”

“The legal action against her should be transparent, not opaque, because this lady has a lot of powerful connections,” he said. “She can get away with it quickly and easily.”

A businessman who invested 900 million kip (U.S. $65,400) said at first that Jay Thip paid him the interest regularly. 

“But later, I received nothing,” he told RFA. “I lost 900 million kip ($59,000). I’d never thought that Jay Thip would do this to us because she had been very open with us.” 

Another person who fell for the scheme doubted the victims would be paid back. 

“[S]cams like this have happened before,” the person said. “When your money is gone, it’s gone.” 

“Even her own friends who have known her since childhood were also cheated,” the businessman said. “I want my money back, and I want the police to do their job right.”

Illegal investment schemes are nothing new in the largely impoverished country where corruption runs rampant and law enforcement can be lax.

In 2017, for example, an agricultural company running a pyramid scheme in Laos defaulted on millions of U.S. dollars owed to its stakeholders, raising questions as to why the government failed to adequately regulate the market and inform investors about potential pitfalls.

Translated by Max Avary for RFA Lao. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Lao.

The Vietnamese national, identified as Anh T.L., was handed over to German authorities on Wednesday after his arrest in Prague earlier this year, news agencies reported citing a statement from the German Federal Prosecutor's Office.

Anh faces charges including espionage and is accused of stalking the victim and driving the getaway van.

On July 23, 2017, former Trinh Xuan Thanh was abducted in a Berlin park and thrown into a van with a woman, identified as Thi Minh P.D. He was allegedly smuggled back to Vietnam for trial.

A Hanoi court charged Thanh with causing loss of state assets and mismanagement at PetroVietnam Construction Joint Stock Corporation. He was sentenced to two life terms on corruption charges.

At the time of his abduction Thanh was seeking refugee status in Germany. The kidnapping strained German-Vietnamese relations and prompted Berlin to expel two Vietnamese diplomats.

A year after the kidnapping, a Vietnamese citizen, identified as Long N.H., was sentenced to three years and 10 months in prison by a Berlin court on charges of espionage and assisting Vietnamese secret service agents in entering German territory to kidnap people.

"The kidnapping was carried about by members of the Vietnamese secret service and employees of the Vietnamese embassy in Berlin as well as several Vietnamese nationals living in Europe, among them Ahn T.L.," the German public prosecutor general at the Federal Court of Justice said in a statement seen by news agencies.

Vietnam claims Thanh returned voluntarily to face charges.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Vietnamese.

The Vietnamese national, identified as Anh T.L., was handed over to German authorities on Wednesday after his arrest in Prague earlier this year, news agencies reported citing a statement from the German Federal Prosecutor's Office.

Anh faces charges including espionage and is accused of stalking the victim and driving the getaway van.

On July 23, 2017, former Trinh Xuan Thanh was abducted in a Berlin park and thrown into a van with a woman, identified as Thi Minh P.D. He was allegedly smuggled back to Vietnam for trial.

A Hanoi court charged Thanh with causing loss of state assets and mismanagement at PetroVietnam Construction Joint Stock Corporation. He was sentenced to two life terms on corruption charges.

At the time of his abduction Thanh was seeking refugee status in Germany. The kidnapping strained German-Vietnamese relations and prompted Berlin to expel two Vietnamese diplomats.

A year after the kidnapping, a Vietnamese citizen, identified as Long N.H., was sentenced to three years and 10 months in prison by a Berlin court on charges of espionage and assisting Vietnamese secret service agents in entering German territory to kidnap people.

"The kidnapping was carried about by members of the Vietnamese secret service and employees of the Vietnamese embassy in Berlin as well as several Vietnamese nationals living in Europe, among them Ahn T.L.," the German public prosecutor general at the Federal Court of Justice said in a statement seen by news agencies.

Vietnam claims Thanh returned voluntarily to face charges.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Vietnamese.