It was supposed to be once-in-a-lifetime adventure for a Newmarket man and his two teenage children, a long-awaited trip to Africa to climb Mount Kilimanjaro.
Instead, it became a terrifying ordeal after the man said that he and his family were kidnapped, assaulted, robbed, and threatened with death.
On Dec. 17, Sean Stephens, his 18-year-old daughter Trinity and son Kai, 15, left Canada for a three-week vacation. They arrived in Tanzania and spent several days scaling up and down the mountain before flying to South Africa for a week to visit Stephens’ missionary parents, Heather and Chuck.
On the last day of their trip, Stephens and the kids along with his mother and a vulnerable 12-year-old girl she’d adopted ventured to the Kingdom of Eswatini (formerly Swaziland) to visit a children’s home and donate medicine.
After a visit at the orphanage, the group jumped back in their rental vehicle en route to a youth camp run by his mother.
But before embarking on that roughly three-and a-half hour drive they stopped in the city of Mbombela to grab some take-out food and fuel.
That’s when everything went south.
There, Stephens said he was pulled over by what he believed to be a police officer but soon realized was only posing as one.
“They were immediately aggressive. … (The officer) also had no insignia and no police hat,” he told CP24.com on Wednesday morning.
Stephens said that the individual was wearing a vest with the word “POLICE” on the front and was quickly joined by a number of other men who approached his SUV.
One of them then reached inside the vehicle to unlock the door, he said.
“Suddenly my mother said, ‘He’s got a gun’,” Stephens told CP24.com. “He then pointed that gun at my head.”
Stephens, who is the CEO of a digital marketing company called Treefrog, said he initially assumed the assailants were after the rental vehicle, their cell phones, and other personal effects.
Instead, he said that the men pulled him out of the driver’s seat and shoved him into the vehicle’s middle row where his two kids were seated, repeatedly striking him in the head with a pistol. Stephens said that one of the suspects sat on his elderly mother’s lap in the front seat, while her adoptive child was in the vehicle’s back row.
Everyone was then ordered to duck down so they couldn’t see where they were going while the suspects drove away, Stephens said.
“This was an orchestrated event,” he told CP24.com. “It was a very aggressive, terrifying situation.”
Stephen said that the suspects drove for about 30 minutes before coming to a stop at a forested area, near a cliff.
The men then opened the doors of the vehicle with guns drawn and rifled through the family’s belongings taking their debit and credit cards and demanding that they divulge their PIN numbers, he said.
“They threatened to rape my daughter if the PIN was incorrect,” Stephens said, adding that the assailants then grabbed him and beat him up further outside the vehicle.
At that point, the whole family was transferred and locked inside the bed of the pick-up truck, which was driven to several places over the course of about 90 minutes, he said.
Stephen said that he suspected at the time that the assailants were “going from ATM to ATM” and was fearful that they would kill him and his family once they were done emptying their bank accounts.
However, he said that the kidnappers eventually brought them back to another location where their SUV had been taken and allowed them to go their own way.
In the end, Stephens said they lost roughly $10,000 in cash along with a few cell phones and some jewelry.
Stephens said that police told him that they’re seeing a rash of similar robbery-kidnapping incidents in the area, which they believe are being led by a group known as the Blue Light Bandits.
“This (ordeal) was truly traumatic,” he said.
Both Global Affairs Canada and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) have confirmed to CP24.com that they are aware of a kidnapping and extortion situation involving Canadians in South Africa but didn’t provide further details, citing privacy concerns.
“We work closely with our international partners and maintain strong relationships with law enforcement agencies around the world,” Sgt. Kim Chamberland, of the RCMP, wrote in a statement.
“The RCMP does not comment on specific criminal investigations in foreign jurisdictions.”
Global Affairs Canada spokesperson Grantly Franklin, meanwhile, said that consular officials are “closely monitoring the situation and are providing consular assistance.”
“In cases of kidnapping, Canadian consular officials can work closely with local authorities and, in some cases, Canadian authorities, to gather information maintain contact with a friend or family member of the victim to keep them informed of any developments,” he said.
Global Affairs Canada is urging citizens abroad to “exercise a high degree of caution in South Africa due to the significant level of serious crime, including police officer impersonation and kidnappings.”
Stephens and his kids arrived back in Canada on Jan. 8. He said he’s touched by the hundreds of people who have since reached out to offer them their support.
He said that many have also come forward to help get his mother’s charity back on its feet, donating $2,500 within a just a few days.
“I’m just so glad to be Canadian,” he said.
