Interpol issues global alert for Pitt student missing in Dominican Republic

Megan Guza, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on Mar 13, 2025

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International authorities have issued a global alert for University of Pittsburgh student Sudiksha Konanki, who went missing on a spring break trip to the Dominican Republic one week ago.

Interpol — officially the International Criminal Police Organization — issues so-called yellow notices for victims of unexplained disappearances or potential kidnappings. The notices generally come at the request of law enforcement in one of Interpol's nearly 200 member countries.

Authorities in Konanki's home county of Loudoun, Va., requested the global alert, according to Dominican Today.

The 20-year-old pre-med student seemingly vanished March 6 from the beach near the Punta Cana resort where she and five friends arrived days earlier. She was last seen on the beach shortly before 5 a.m., and authorities from the Dominican and United States have spent a week conducting extensive searches via land, sea, and air to no avail.

"We are utilizing all our resources to thoroughly investigate the disappearance of Sudiksha Konanki, and we understand the distress this case causes her family, Dominican citizens, and Americans," Dominican Attorney General Yeni Berenice Reynoso said in a translated statement provided to media Monday night.

"Like with any disappearance that occurs in the circumstances of the case at hand," Reynoso said, "we are applying a holistic investigation protocol that examines all variables."

Police sources have told multiple U.S. news outlets that further security footage captured Konanki, her five friends, and two men walking toward the beach shortly after 4 a.m. Thursday. Less than an hour later, footage showed the five friends and one of the men returning from the beach. The other man is seen returning from the beach with no sign of Konanki just before 9 a.m.

According to NBC News, Konanki's friends were on an excursion during the day on Thursday and didn't realize she was missing until late that afternoon. Dominican authorities said they received a call from the U.S. Embassy alerting them to the situation Friday morning.

The FBI and Loudoun County Sheriff's Office on Wednesday named a "person of interest" in the case but stressed that the 24-year-old American man, who was on vacation in Punta Cana, is not a suspect and the case is not a criminal investigation.

Meanwhile, Konanki's family has asked Dominican authorities to widen the investigation, according to WTOP-FM, and her father and a family friend filed a record of complaint over the weekend. The complaint, according to the radio station, notes that "While it is possible that Sudiksha drowned, there is a growing suspicion that there may be a crime, specifically the possibility of kidnapping."

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