Mediate Michigan

Six years after two young Reston boys were taken to Germany by their mother, the father of the boys still is fighting to have them returned.

Gregory Gardner, 38, who married a German national living in the U.S. only two months after meeting her in an online chat room in 1998, claims that in late 2004 his wife made up a story about her mother being terminally ill, took the couple’s two boys from Reston to Germany and never returned.

Officials say that child custody battles involving spouses with different national origins seem to be increasing, and that the “abduction” of children by a parent to another country is becoming more and more common.

via Custody lines blur when parents cross international waters.