Going through an unfathomable experience with his children has reaffirmed to Sean Stephens that Newmarket is the greatest place in the world to live.
The Treefrog CEO spent the Christmas holidays with his 18-year-old daughter, Trinity, and 15-year-old son, Kai, climbing Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania.
What started as a great Christmas vacation turned into nightmare when the family went to visit Sean’s mother, Heather, who works to support vulnerable children and orphans in South Africa.
After a few days of fun, Sean, Trinity, Kai, Heather, and a 12-year-old adopted by Heather, drove to the Kingdom of Eswatini (formerly Swaziland) on Jan. 6 to bring medicine to an orphanage there.
On the way back, they were approached in Mbombela by a vehicle with flashing lights. Stephens pulled over, presuming police officers were stopping him for a driving infraction.
A man wearing a vest with the word “police” on it came up to the window of Stephen's vehicle and asked for his licence and registration. While travelling internationally previously, Stephens said he has been pulled over by police who took his passport and asked for a bribe to have it returned, so he asked the man to provide proof he was a police officer.
After a verbal altercation, and Stephens realizing this couldn’t be a police officer, the man reached into the car and unlocked it. He opened the door to pull out Stephens and more men jumped into the car and grabbed his children. One of the men pointed a gun at Stephens' face.
“I thought I was dead and this was it,” he said.
Stephens, who presumed they were hijacking the vehicle, said he was focused on keeping his children safe. He began complying with the men, but then they put his children back in the car and began to hit him with a gun trying to force him into it, as well.
Eventually, when they were all in the vehicle, they drove for about half an hour to the middle of nowhere near a cliff.
“They opened all the doors and threatened to kill us,” said Stephens.
Stephens told them they were in the country to help and that the kidnappers could have all the money if it meant his family’s safety.
The men then went through Stephens' wallet and asked for the pin number of each card and wrote them down.
Eventually, he was thrown to the ground, and three of them began kicking him.
They then told Stephens that if the pin numbers were wrong, they were going to rape his daughter and kill him.
The kidnappers put Stephens and the three kids into the back of a pickup truck with a hardshell cover and closed them in while his mother was forced to sit in the truck with the kidnappers.
Stephens and the kids spent the next three hours in the back of the truck struggling to breath and dealing with the heat while the truck made multiple stops. Stephens figured that they were driving around to ATMs and taking out money. It was later confirmed to him by police that they were in fact going city to city and withdrawing money.
“They told us since the pins all worked they’d take us back to our car,” said Stephens. “I didn’t think we could possibly be going back to our car.”
Fearing something worse was going to happen, Stephens began plotting how to save the children. He decided he would go for the most aggressive kidnapper who has the gun and see if he could end this.
“I knew it would probably cost me my life,” he said. “But it would be worth it to save the kids.”
When the back of the truck opened, they were at their car and Stephens and his family were told to get in the car and leave.
Stephens drove to a police station, but the police told them that they couldn’t help. So they then drove to his father Chuck’s house, who’s also a missionary in South Africa, and he instructed them to go to another police station.
They ended up going back to the city they were kidnapped to speak to the police. Stephens thinks because there was a tourism worker there, the police were more helpful.
It’s an ongoing investigation, both the RCMP and Government of Canada are aware of it, and police believe a group called the Blue Light Bandits are behind a string of kidnappings and robberies like this one, said Stephens.
“They said they had tried to kidnap people the night before and had kidnapped people four days before and three days after us,” he said. “They’re targeting tourists.”
After the traumatic experience, Stephens said there was no way he was keeping his children there any longer despite having a concussion and being told not to fly.
“All that mattered was getting them back to their mother,” he said. “I didn’t care if I died on the plane.”
The family left the next day and returned home to Newmarket where things were starting to feel normal at first, but the traumatic experience is beginning to affect the family.
Stephens said his daughter had a meltdown recently and was in a car accident, while his son forfeit his exams that were scheduled for next week because he was struggling to concentrate.
“I would have said even yesterday we’re back to normal,” he said. “But today, I’m realizing it’s going to take us time.”
Local therapists have been amazing, said Stephens, and the outpouring of love from the community has been almost overwhelming.
“People have been so loving,” he said. “You wouldn’t believe how many hundreds of people have reached out.”
Stephens said he didn’t need to be reminded that Newmarket is the best place to be, but it’s emphasized to him that his business, Treefrog, which brings international startups to Canada, is doing important work.
“This has reafirmed my mission in life of finding great entrepreneurs and moving them out of unsafe places,” he said.
Overall, Stephens said they lost about $10,000 in cash and belongings, and his mother, who stayed in South Africa committed to helping children there, had her orphanage cleaned out by the kidnappers.
“She was broke,” he said. “She didn’t know how to run camps for the next week, so I gave all the money I had to her, but it still didn’t cover everything she lost.”
Stephens was hopeful that insurance would cover the losses, but that hasn’t been the case since being back in Canada.
“No insurance has covered any of this,” he said. “Every insurance company is pointing at the other insurance company and saying it falls between the cracks because it’s an act of God or terrorism.”
Despite the losses and going through something unimaginable, Stephens is just happy to be in a community like Newmarket.
“I’ve said from day one that this is the best place in the world to live,” he said. “Newmarket is an amazing place, the amount of people reaching out is surreal.”
Learn more about Heather's charity work and donate here.
