The two commandos were not plotting to foil terrorists or seize a drug lord. They were trying to rescue a 5-year-old girl caught in a long-distance custody battle. The child, Brittney Chowdhury, was one of hundreds of children abducted every year and spirited overseas by their foreign-born fathers. Frustrated after more than a year of futile legal efforts, the girl’s mother, Keli, an Oklahoma homemaker, decided to take the law into her own hands - and hired a commando force to get her child back. She approached the firm of Corporate Training Unlimited, based in Fayetteville, N.C., which employs a half dozen ex-Delta Force and special-operations commandos who train police SWAT teams and advise corporations on security. CTU’s sideline is the rent-a-rescue business. CTU commandos have launched 11 successful snatches in such countries as Jordan, Tunisia and Saudi Arabia. NEWSWEEK has learned that CTU operatives also slipped into Kuwait to rescue corporate executives trapped during the Iraqi occupation. Feeney, who heads the company, refuses to talk about those operations. When a custody battle is involved, CTU demands to see a court order awarding the child to the mother. “Our service is a court of last resort,” says Feeney, a father of three.
Keli had an order from a Tulsa, Okla., judge but no hope of enforcing it. She met her husband, Mohammed, in 1983 - he was in the United States on a student visa - and married him a year later. After Brittney was born the marriage soured. Keli testified in court that Mohammed was abusive. Several days before a custody hearing in 1989 Mohammed fled with Brittney to Bangladesh, alleging later in court papers that his life was threatened and he was about to be deported. Keli was too fearful of her own safety to follow. But she didn’t want to wait years while the Bangladesh courts considered the case. The State Department would do little more than give her a list of Bangladesh lawyers and have an embassy officer visit the child. “Reading between the lines,” she says, “they were telling me I needed to write my daughter off.” A friend who saw a TV show on CTU rescues gave Keli its name. She called Feeney and begged him to take the case.
Feeney and his men had to find a way to flush out Mohammed. Their bait became Terry Smith, another Tulsa woman, who met Mohammed in Tulsa and married him in Bangladesh after his divorce. But Terry claims Mohammed also abused her, and she left Bangladesh. Back in Tulsa, Terry befriended Keli and agreed to help. Terry told Mohammed she had won $100,000 in a lawsuit and lured him to a hotel in Dhaka last August. There, Feeney and his wife, Judy, posing as business consultants, persuaded Mohammed to fly to Bangkok with the promise of a lucrative job. In his Bangkok hotel room, Mohammed received a visit from Chatellier. The burly Texan twisted Mohammed’s arm and slammed him up against a wall. “I’m going to give you a head start, then I’m coming after you,” Chatellier said. “If you ever mess with Keli I’ll pinch your head off like a bug.” Mohammed fled the hotel with only his passport.
Back in Bangladesh, Feeney and Keli found the little girl, hidden under a bed by Mohammed’s relatives. “That’s my baby,” Keli screamed. Brittney just stared blankly. It had been more than a year since she had seen her mother. Keli pulled out a small photo album with pictures of the two together in Tulsa. “Your name is Keli,” Brittney whispered. “You’re my mama.”
Mother and daughter were not home free. Feeney had been led to believe the Bangladesh courts would award Keli custody if Mohammed did not appear to contest the case. But the judge balked when he learned Mohammed had merely gone to Bangkok and ordered Keli to await his return. Even if the judge awarded Brittney to her mother, local officials warned, the girl might have to remain in the country until she was 12 so her father could visit her. Feeney was not about to wait. He slipped Keli and Brittney out of the hotel and persuaded airport officials to let them board a U.S. flight. (Mohammed could not be reached for comment.)
Mother and daughter are together again in Tulsa, but the reunion did not come cheap. CTU’s expenses alone exceeded $65,000; family friends have donated $58,000. Feeney says he lost money on most of the 11 rescues he’s run. Not surprisingly, his efforts have infuriated the State Department. Missing-children’s groups are also uneasy about the private rescues, fearing retaliation and risk to the children. So far, CTU has faced no U.S. legal problems. In each case the company has arranged for a parent or foreign official to actually take the child. The operations have caused diplomatic waves. The State Department apologized to Jordan after a CTU rescue there. Twenty nations have agreed to a global convention to speed the return of abducted children, but none are from the Mideast or Southwest Asia, where Islamic law gives fathers almost total control of their children. If diplomats and lawyers can’t get the kids back, some desperate parents will continue to call on the commandos.
