Updated

Updated · Fox News · Jul 24

U.S. Returns Dan Hiers Jr. From China After 20 Years to Face 2005 Murder, Child Sex Charges

Updated

Updated · Fox News · Jul 24

U.S. Returns Dan Hiers Jr. From China After 20 Years to Face 2005 Murder, Child Sex Charges

Q: What sudden diplomatic breakthrough prompted Chinese authorities to finally hand over a top US fugitive after 21 years on the run?

There was no publicly identified “sudden diplomatic breakthrough” behind Dan Hiers Jr.’s handover. The official accounts point instead to sustained law-enforcement cooperation between the United States and China that finally resulted in his transfer from Shanghai. The U.S. Marshals Service said deputy marshals took custody of Hiers with help from Chinese authorities, the Chinese Ministry of Public Security, the State Department’s Diplomatic Security Service, the Justice Department’s Office of International Affairs and the FBI. China’s embassy in Washington separately described the move as another outcome of China-U.S. law-enforcement cooperation, saying Chinese police repatriated a U.S. national wanted for serious violent crimes at the request of U.S. authorities. The available reporting does not cite a new treaty, summit deal or abrupt policy shift that suddenly unlocked the case after 21 years. Rather, it suggests the breakthrough was operational: Chinese authorities agreed to execute the transfer after long-running coordination and renewed bilateral police cooperation. In short, the handover appears to have been prompted by practical China-U.S. law-enforcement coordination, not a disclosed dramatic diplomatic concession or one-off political deal.

3 articles · Updated · Fox News · Jul 24

Dan Hiers Jr., 53, was taken into U.S. custody in Shanghai on Wednesday and returned to face a Goose Creek murder warrant and a Dorchester County child sex charge.
Investigators say Hiers shot his 24-year-old wife, Ludimila Hiers, in the back of the head as she slept on March 15, 2005, hours before he was due to surrender on additional sex charges.
Hiers, a former Charleston police officer suspended in 2004, failed to appear in court after child sex allegations and was placed on the U.S. Marshals Service's 15 Most Wanted list in June 2005.
China's Ministry of Public Security, the State Department, Justice Department and FBI helped execute the return, ending what Goose Creek police called a decades-long effort to bring him back.
South Carolina authorities said his first court appearance timing remains unclear, but local and federal officials cast the transfer as a rare long-run fugitive case finally moving toward trial.