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German model Hana Nitsche and boyfriend, music mogul Russell Simmons, offered a $5,000 reward for her lost dog, Ivy, but are now refusing to pay the people who found the chihuahua.
Nitsche, who was a contestant on Germany's Next Top Model, was overjoyed to have Ivy returned, but, as CBS 2 reports, now the people who found the dog say she's accused them of stealing it.
Ivy went missing in early September in Beverly Hills and a frantic Nitsche took to Twitter to ask for the dog's safe return. LA Weekly notes that Simmons also posted ads on Craigslist, which have since been taken down.
The Carranza family tells CBS their father, a landscaper in Beverly Hills, found Ivy wandering in the area and took her back to his family in Palmdale.
Days later, they saw a flyer in Beverly Hills with Ivy's picture, which read "Lost Dog! Large Reward" and called the number on the flyer.
"I was telling her, basically, that her dog was here, that we had her, that she was safe, we were feeding her, you know, everything that was going on, that everything was good," Janet Carranza told CBS. And [Nitsche] said, 'Thank you, God bless you, thank you for saving my dog.'"
The family offered to bring Ivy to Los Angeles, but to their surprise, Nitsche showed up at their home in Palmdale, accompanied by The Bodyguard Group of Beverly Hills. (CBS incorrectly identified them as "The Stolen Dog Recovery Unit of Beverly Hills.")
The bodyguards claimed the dog was held illegally for three days and that there had been no effort to report it.
"She's saying we stole her dog," Carranza said. "I don't know how, but we were just trying to be good people."
Nitsche tweeted about her dog's safe return, thanking the Bodyguard Group, and Simmons tweeted his thanks to "these brilliant guys who tracked down and retrieved the dog."
According to the Daily Mail, Simmons is worth $500 million.
I have never had personal bodyguards ... these brilliant guys tracked down and retrieved @HanaNitsche dog very grateful
— Russell Simmons (@UncleRUSH) September 15, 2013
My Baby is finally back home!! Still speechless!! Thank U to @KrisHerzog #TheBodyguardGroup 4 bringing #Ivy home pic.twitter.com/DWwDlIUAsX
— Hana Nitsche (@HanaNitsche) September 15, 2013
#HelpFindIvy LOST DOG - #Ivy still missing already 3 days!! PLEASE HELP!! REWARD of $5,000.00 offered!! http://t.co/olJLr4iPfq
— Hana Nitsche (@HanaNitsche) September 12, 2013
UPDATE:
The Bodyguard Group of Beverly Hills reached out with a press release about the Nitsche dog incident, and explained: "Please find our press release that has the FACTS of the case, at NO time do we accuse ANYONE of stealing the dog, we simply point out the highly suspicious FACTS of the case, the dog was stolen, but we do NOT know who stole it, that 90% in fact are NOR disputed by persons in Palmdale who held the dog for 3 days, after the 1st calls and emails were placed."
The following is the release in its entirety:
PRESS RELEASE from The Bodyguard Group of Beverly Hills: On Tuesday September 16th, 2013 "Ivy" a dog belonging to Hana Nitsche disappeared from Beverly Hills California. "Ivy" had 2 clean and clear dog tags with the NAME AND PHONE NUMBER of the legal owner Hana Nitsche. For over 3 days Hana Nitsche received blocked calls at his home and the callers used a voice altering machine to disguise their voices when they called her from the blocked number. During these 3 days of blocked and voice altered / voice disguised calls the callers ONLY asked about a reward and AT NO TIME offered to return the dog "Ivy" to Hana Nitsche. As Hana Nitsche was posting flyer's around the neighborhood she was followed several times by a vehicle that closely matched the description of the vehicle parked in front of the house in Palmdale, CA where the dog was eventually recovered from 3 days later, OVER 56 miles away from the dogs home in Beverly Hills. On Friday they asked for our help in the immediate legal recovery of "Ivy" the stolen dog. The Senior Command Staff of The Bodyguard Group of Beverly Hills immediately deployed our "A Team" Stolen Dog recovery unit with a tracking Dog "Bear" and we took over ALL recovery efforts from the location of the theft. After 4 hours of negotiating, posing as Hana Nitsche. on her computer, our team finlay confirmed, ( thru confidential methods ) that the calls were coming from Palmdale, Ca. Our "A Team" of Elite Military members stolen dog recovery unit team spent the next 4 hours trading emails with the persons who had been allegedly calling for the previous 3 days, from Tuesday 09/10/13 until Friday o9/13/13. We asked the persons holding the dog to send "proof of life" photos before we would discuss the large cash reward, they sent several photos showing the dog "Ivy" was still wearing her ID tags with the name and phone number of Hana Nitsche clearly visible in the photos, these persons admitted that they had been ILLEGALLY holding the dog for 3 days and also admitted that had NOT made any effort to contact Hana Nitsche or return the dog for 3 days and admitted that had made NO effort to contact the Police or Animal Control and turn the dog in in the previous 3 days. After additional negotiating the persons holding "Ivy" the dog finlay agreed to meet at an address in Palmdale that matched the general area of Palmdale in our previous checks. The persons at this house kept the house, inside and our pitch black dark and spent several minutes trying to coach Hana inside the dark house, with people hiding and peeking around corners. The Bodyguard Group of Beverly Hills deployed our Elite High Risk Emergency Response Team of Elite Military Veterans and recovered the stolen dog "Ivy" about 2 hours later that same night in Palmdale, CA over 56 miles from the home in Beverly Hills, where the dog was taken from. These stolen dog recovery methods and tactics were greatly enhanced and updated recently by our "A Team" stolen dog recovery unit during an operation on July 1st, 2013 that successfully recovered our stolen Service Dog BEAR.
