Hostage music ‘: How an American metal rocker arrived at Russatravis Leake prison left California for a new life in Moscow. Then he was arrested. He wrote letters to Rolling Stone telling his version of History

In a minute, Travis Leake He was trying to decide which movie he and his bride should watch in his rented apartment on the outskirts of Moscow. Next, he was lying face down on the floor on a small puddle of his own blood.

That afternoon of early June 2023, Leake He heard knocks on his unit door in a three -story building on a wooded street. Since moving from the United States to Russia, six years earlier, Leake has alternated between teaching English to inhabitants and trying to make his new grunge-metal band take off.

In videos and photos on social networks, LeakeNow in the early fifty, he had the aura of an old punk gothic statesman. The pandemic ended up with any hope of live concerts in his band, and a book he planned to co-apply on Anthony Bourdain (in whose program he appeared) failed. But he felt so comfortable in Russia that he did not think of leaving, even after the events of the previous year.

Leake He found himself in front of four masked and uniformed Russian tactical police officers, branding assault weapons; Police detectives followed behind. According to one report, police said they were acting based on a complaint about “drugs and money.” Second Leake He says, he raised his hands in surrender, but the police pushed him to the floor and raised him so hard that his wrists soon began to bleed.

He was then kicked in his chest as the police teased him and dragged him on the floor. He remembers seeing his bride, a native of Russia, undergoing an intrusive magazine in body cavities. The police also seized their cell phone and destroyed their home where he lived two years ago, destroying his recording configuration in the process.

Leake He says the couple was talking about starting a bath pump company, and a pile of these ingredients, including sodium bicarbonate and citrus acid, was on display. He says the police slapped him, trying to make him admit that the components of the soap were drug gadgets. Leake remembers having felt a plastic bag being placed in his head and to feel it fall. All the time, the police filmed the operation.

There in Bakersfield, California, where his son spent most of his childhood, his mother, Glenda GarciaShe learned from a reporter that her son, that she has not seen in person since 2017, had been arrested on suspicion of drug trafficking. As a statement from the Russian government said: “The District Court of Khamovniki in Moscow has taken a preventive measure against an American citizen.”. Leake It was finally receiving the recognition I had long wanted, but not remotely the way I had dreamed.

Americans arrested abroad

Ultimately, dozens of Americans are detained in countries around the world. Under the administration of Joe BidenMore than 75 were brought back to the United States of China, Russia, Iran and other countries. In Russia, the WNBA star Brittney Griner It was released in a 2022 prisoner exchange, followed last year for the release of the Wall Street Journal reporter, Evan Gershkovich. But in Russia alone, at least 10 more Americans (and many from other countries) remain, some officially considered by their governments as unjustly detained, and others (how Leake) no.

When Interfax, the Russian news agency, announced its prison, Leake It was described as, among other things, a US musician and former paraquadist. Most of the world of American music had never heard of him, and some information, like his military history, was exaggerated. But the real focus was on the accusations raised against Leake: That he and an ex-girlfriend were essentially a two-person drug trafficking gang that was trying to sell Mefordona (a stimulant similar to a combination of cocaine and speed) In Russia. In July, more than a year after its detention, Leake He was sentenced to 13 years in a criminal colony and his or her or her or her or her or her or her or her or her or her or her or her.

The arrest and detention of Leake He gained international headlines for a few days, but unlike other Americans, who were designated by the US to be unjustly detained, their history quickly disappeared from the view of the public. Last year, under Bidenthe US State Department declined to comment on the situation of Leake the Rolling Stonejust offering a general statement that the department “It has no greater priority than the security of US citizens abroad”.

Last autumn, I began to contact the family and friends of Leakeboth here and in Russia, to understand how a California computer geek found itself at the head of a Russian rock band and was then arrested on charges of drug trafficking. The investigation eventually led to Leake – Who, through handwritten letters sent to his mother, agreed to answer my questions, largely officially.

The two answers I have received so far, totaling almost a dozen pages, are written in a clear, concise, though tiny (partly, according to his mother, to reduce page charges for this type of correspondence). In them, Leake He tells his story and states his innocence, insisting that drugs in his home were planted and that he was the target of the government. “I don’t expect or demand that anyone simply believes in my word in any of this”he wrote in December. “The tests are clear and consistent. I was done hostage and the [governo] intentionally buried defense evidence. “

The change in the administration of Biden to Donald Trump gave the Leake -And to your family and those who work on your behalf to free you-a degree of hope. On March 9, Trump continued the “day of hostages and unjust detainees in the US”, first stated in 2023, announcing that its administration “It is proudly taking decisive measures to bring Americans back home, where they belong” and reciting the names of 13 Americans “Keeping in captivity” which are now released from Russia, Venezuela, Afghanistan and Belarus.

It is not yet known if Leake He will eventually join this list, and he and some people who met him wonders whether his detention and prison-assuming he is innocent-were linked to the invasion of Ukraine, Russian American relations, his political convictions, partial work as rock musician, or even his appearance in that episode of the TV show of TV Bourdain For over a decade.

In your letters, Leake Recognizes the risks of communicating with the outside world, but feels that you need to tell your version of the story. As he writes on a page: “Before I was killed, I had a simple, cheerful and actually almost magical and long desired life.… I was happy. I was not rich or famous, but I tried. I found my place in this fucking world.” But in a continuation, he adds: “I am in hell. An ardent, desolate, low, obscene, solitary, seemingly endless, obscure, and background, free fall through the ass of Satan.”

Article published on April 26, 2025 at Rolling Stone. To read the original in English, click here.