Oakland Couple Missing on Bike Trip Reportedly Seen in Peruvian Village

By Bay City News Service

An Oakland couple believed to be missing on a bike trip in Peru have reportedly been seen in a local village, family members said Tuesday afternoon.

An extensive search effort headed by family members has been under way after all communication stopped coming in from Garrett Hand, 25, and his girlfriend, Jamie Neal, at the end of January. They left for a South American bike trip in late November and had been in constant communication, mostly through social media, throughout the trip until Jan. 25.

At 3 p.m. this afternoon, Tuesday, Hand's mother Francine Fitzgerald released a family statement saying that the U.S. Embassy and Peruvian government officials had called, informing family members that the couple had been seen in a remote village in Peru. She was told the two were on a boat on a river and that a plane was being sent to find them.

Fitzgerald wrote she was expecting an update Wednesday and is continuing the search effort.

"Until I hear from and see my son directly, we will not stop," she wrote. "We have not heard from them since January 25, nor have they accessed bank accounts since that time. We have only the worst to consider as to why."

The couple, who live near lake Merritt, had been documenting their trip online. Social media posts dropped off around the same time the financial activity stopped, family members said.

The last post on Neal's Facebook was on Jan. 23, when the pair arrived in Cusco, Peru. Hand, a commercial fisherman in the Bay Area, posted in Spanish on his Facebook page from Cusco on Jan. 25. about traveling through Lima, Peru, to another area in Peru.

On Feb. 13, the U.S. Embassy in Lima posted an emergency message warning of a potential kidnapping threat in the Cusco area.

"The Embassy has received information that members of a criminal organization may be planning to kidnap U.S. citizen tourists in the Cusco and Machu Picchu area," the message reads.

The threat is listed as credible through the end of February.

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