Ganna Kovrizhnykh, the Ukrainian woman who disappeared from San Diego over a year ago while travelling around North America, has reportedly been found alive in Mexico. She was discovered staying in Mexico's Sinaloa state, a year after she first went missing.
Cryptic messages before disappearance
Kovrizhnykh's disappearance was shrouded in mystery after she reportedly left a series of cryptic notes and videos. The day before she went missing, she uploaded a Facebook video in which she read Bible verses and declared: “Two commandments. No one escape. Who kill will die forever.”
“There is no way to escape. The punishment is coming. The rapture is coming. It is already on the earth. There is only a few years left… I’m a prophet.”
Investigation and discovery
Following her disappearance, Kovrizhnykh reportedly received a photograph of a letter containing cryptic coordinates that led her to Potrero, a small town just north of the US-Mexico border. According to the National Unidentified Persons System, she was able to send her daughter vital supplies using this link.
Sergeant Jacob Klepach of the sheriff’s Missing Persons and Cold Case Team issued a post-discovery statement: “The San Diego County Sheriff’s Office conducted an extensive investigation, exhausting all leads. Sheriff’s investigators believed Kovrizhnykh likely had voluntarily crossed into Mexico.”
During the original search, Sergeant Klepach said: “We believe she was just kind of touring the country and she left her vehicle in Potrero and never came back to her vehicle. We don’t really have any belief one way or another at this point if there is foul play involved or if she just strictly voluntarily left.”
Mexico's missing-persons crisis
The disappearance is not the first to make headlines in recent years in Mexico, with the country grappling with a huge missing-persons crisis. Government figures released in March 2026 showed 132,534 people remained officially missing or unaccounted for. More than 20,000 new cases were recorded during 2025 alone.
Officials say organised crime has driven disappearances since 2006, while victims also include migrants and people who leave voluntarily. Desperate relatives, particularly groups known as “searching mothers”, regularly conduct their own investigations and excavations. Mexico has introduced a national search alert and ordered investigations to begin immediately after reports, but families continue to criticise delays and inadequate resources.
