Work is not over yet for U.S. diplomacy after the historic prisoner exchange with Russia that brought Wall Street Journal journalist Evan Gershkovich, former Marine sergeant Paul Whelan and Radio Free Europe reporter Alsu Kurmasheva back to the United States.
There still remain at least 17 U.S. citizens detained around the world, not counting less high profile and not apparently politically motivated cases.
Starting with Russia itself, which still hosts as many as seven of Biden’s fellow compatriots remain.
- James Vincent Wilgus – a musician residing in Russia who on Nov. 7, 2016, was arrested and charged with committing lewd acts in an area Wilgus’ family claimed he had never visited, and where he was allegedly forcibly taken after being loaded into a van. He is currently being held in the IK-17 penal colony in Mordovia (the same one where Paul Whelan was serving his sentence).
- Thomas Stwalley – arrested in July 2018 on charges of smuggling marijuana. He too, is being held in Mordovia.
- Eugene Spector – a businessman born and raised in Russia before moving to the United States and getting U.S. citizenship. All that is known about him is that he had been first charged with bribery (in February 2020) and later with espionage.
- Marc Fogel – a teacher at an international school in Moscow He was arrested in August 2021 on charges of marijuana possession. He is currently in a penal colony. His family expressed disappointment as he was not included in the most recent prisoner swap.
- David Barnes – arrested in August 2022, he was accused of abusing his two children between 2014 and 2018 in the United States, although earlier investigations by Houston police had never found any grounds to press charges. He was in Russia to visit his own two children, taken out of the United States in 2019 illegally by his ex-wife, Russian national Svetlana Koptyaeva, during a custody dispute.
- Michael Travis Leake – a musician and producer, he was arrested in Moscow in June 2023 for alleged drug dealing. He faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.
- Gordon Black – an army sergeant, he was arrested in Vladivostok for theft and threatened murder. Stationed in South Korea, he had traveled to Russia without permission from his superiors to join his Russian girlfriend (despite being married). A court convicted him of stealing 10,000 rubles (roughly $116) from his girlfriend’s purse and threatening her. His case has not been considered politically motivated.
Moscow is trailed by Washington’s other major geopolitical rival, namely China, where at least four Americans are being detained:
- Protestant missionary David Lin was arrested in China in 2006 on charges of tax fraud. The American was involved in a lengthy judicial process that many believe was politically motivated. His sentence, initially of life in prison, was shortened to 19 years and six months – which should make him a free man again in 2029.
- Photographer and businessman Mark Swidan was arrested in 2012 in Jiangmen, Guangdong Province, on drug trafficking charges. Despite his repeated claims of innocence and lack of hard evidence, Swidan was sentenced to the death penalty (which could be carried out as soon as 2025), prompting huge protests from human rights organizations and the U.S. government.
- Kai Li, a Sino-American businessman, was arrested in September 2016 on espionage charges. His family and the U.S. government claim the charges are unfounded and politically motivated. He is currently serving his 10-year sentence in Shanghai’s Qingpu Penitentiary.
- 78-year-old Liang Chengyun was sentenced to life in prison in April 2021 on charges of espionage.
The following U.S. citizens also remain behind bars:
- Shahab Dalili, imprisoned in Iran in 2016 for “aiding and abetting” the United States. At the time of his arrest, he was visiting Tehran for his father’s funeral. His family had recently immigrated to the United States and settled in Gainesville, Virginia with a permanent residence permit (which doesn’t formally make him a U.S. citizen).
- Ahmed Maher, a political activist and one of the founders of the April 6 Movement. He was arrested in Egypt in 2013 for his role in protests against the junta of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.
- Paul Overby, a journalist and author kidnapped by the Taliban in 2014 while working on a book about the war in Afghanistan. Very little is known about his whereabouts.
- Marcel Malanga, Tyler Thompson, and Benjamin Reuben Zalman-Polun have been detained since May 2024 in the Democratic Republic of Congo on charges of participating in the coup attempt led by Christian Malanga against President Felix Tshisekedi.
