U.S. Sends Plane to Cuba to Get Child in Transgender Custody Case

Source: New York Times

U.S. Sends Plane to Cuba to Get Child in Transgender Custody Case

The F.B.I. believed the child was kidnapped by a transgender parent to potentially undergo gender transition surgery, according to court filings.


A flight tracker showed that a U.S. government plane landed at the Jose Marti International Airport in Havana. It appeared to be part of an F.B.I. mission to retrieve an American child. Alexandre Meneghini/Reuters

By Luis Ferré-Sadurní and Frances Robles
April 21, 2026

Aviation hobbyists were the first to sound the alarm: A Justice Department jet was on a rare, direct course from Virginia to Cuba on Monday, fueling instant rumors online about its mission. ... Did the Boeing 757 carry a secret diplomatic envoy? Was it a sign of shifting relations between Cuba and the United States? Or part of a more aggressive push by the Trump administration against Havana?

The answer was buried in a federal complaint filed days earlier in a Utah courthouse: The plane was part of an unusual F.B.I. mission to retrieve a 10-year-old American child who the F.B.I. believed had been kidnapped by a transgender parent and her partner to potentially undergo gender transition surgery, according to federal court filings.

The plane landed in Cuba on Monday to retrieve the child, according to a U.S. official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe a sensitive mission. ... Two women from Cache County, Utah, Rose and Blue Inessa-Ethington, were arrested by the F.B.I. and are now facing federal kidnapping charges, according to the filings. Rose, one of the child’s biological parents, shares custody with the child’s biological mother, identified only as “LB” in filings. Rose transitioned to female after the child’s birth, according to her family members. ... The allegations against the two women were detailed in an affidavit filed by an F.B.I. special agent, Jennifer Waterfield, in Utah federal court last week. In the filings, the F.B.I. described an elaborate, multicountry kidnapping plot involving $10,000 in cash. Agents believe that the two women deceived the child’s biological mother with a fake camping trip to Canada before heading to Mexico and fleeing to Cuba, according to the filings.

Lawyers and experts who have worked on parental kidnapping cases, which are typically complex, especially when a parent travels with a child abroad, said that it was highly unusual for the F.B.I. to dispatch a massive government-owned plane outside the country for a case like this. ... “This is bizarre, highly unusual,” said Jay Groob, president of American Investigative Services, a firm that helps clients in child custody and recovery cases. “I’ve never heard of that happening."

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Alan Feuer contributed reporting. Kirsten Noyes contributed research.

Luis Ferré-Sadurní is a reporter for The Times based in Bogotá, Colombia
https://www.nytimes.com/by/luis-ferre-sadurni

Frances Robles is a Times reporter covering Latin America and the Caribbean. She has reported on the region for more than 25 years.
https://www.nytimes.com/by/frances-robles

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/21/world/americas/cuba-us-child-justice-department-transgender.html

A Justice Department jet was part of an unusual FBI mission to Cuba on Monday to retrieve a 10-year-old American child. The FBI believed the child had been kidnapped by a transgender parent and her partner to potentially undergo gender transition surgery, according to federal court filings.

— The New York Times (@nytimes.com) 2026-04-22T04:37:02.088641Z