Staten Island resident James Luckey-Lange is missing.

“He went missing in Venezuela,” filmmaker Eva Aridjis Fuentes said. “He was last heard from on Dec. 8. And then he was supposed to arrive in New York on Dec. 12 to go on a cruise with his aunts Abbie and Debbie and obviously never appeared. And that would have been his mother’s 65th birthday.”

What You Need To Know

  • Staten Island resident James Luckey-Lange was last heard from in December, and his family just learned he’s being detained by Venezuelan authorities

  • The news came a few days after U.S. armed forces seized and extradited former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, on federal drug trafficking charges

  • The New York Times reports that Venezuela’s military counterintelligence agency is holding Luckey-Lange in a detention center in Caracas
  • He’s among several Americans currently being detained by the country

Luckey-Lange’s family realized he was being detained a few days after U.S. armed forces seized and extradited former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, on federal drug trafficking charges, according to Aridjis Fuentes.

She met him and his family while making a documentary about his mother, musician Diane Luckey, who went by the stage name Q Lazzarus. Her big break came when her song “Goodbye Horses” was featured in the 1991 blockbuster “The Silence of the Lambs.”

The Staten Islander died suddenly in 2022.

“So when she passed away in 2022, he said, ‘OK, I’m going to go traveling around the Caribbean and Latin America because that’s what my mother did,’” Aridjis Fuentes said. “He wanted to sort of do these things that she had done. And he was also, I think, trying to find himself. Figuring out what he was going to do with his life, mourning the loss of his mother. And in August, his father passed away.”

The New York Times reports that Venezuela’s military counterintelligence agency is holding Luckey-Lange in a detention center in Caracas. He’s among several Americans currently being detained by the country.

“If we’re trying to understand what the logic may be, that the regime or at least elements of these security services would look at these Americans as potentially useful bargaining chips or hedges in case things sour with the United States,” David Kearns, St. Johns’s professor of Government and Politics, said.

Kearns said that makes it difficult to determine how soon Americans being held by Venezuela might be released.

“A lot of instances in history where countries try to do things to make other countries act a certain way, the signals and ideas of what one country might actually want are kind of lost in translation,” he said.

The Times also reports that Luckey-Lange is one of two Americans who may be designated as wrongfully detained. This elevates the case to the special envoy for hostage affairs, which involves more intense diplomatic negotiations and may lead to outcomes such as a prisoner swap — though release is not guaranteed and can take years.

In a statement, Rep. Nicole Malliotakis — who represents Staten Island — told NY1 they’ve been in contact with the State Department about the situation, which is advising American citizens not to travel to Venezuela at this time, as there is a high risk of wrongful detention.

She says her office has also been in touch with Luckey-Lange’s family and the White House and continues to monitor the situation.