Brian McDonald
A former U.S. soldier has been extradited from Ukraine and faces charges related to a double murder in Florida and other alleged crimes, authorities said Monday. Craig Austin Lang, 34, allegedly committed the double homicide, as well as armed robbery and aggravated identity theft, according to a US Department of Justice press release.
Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Nicole M. Argentieri referred to Lang’s alleged actions as an “international crime wave” that was “shocking in its scope and in its callous disregard for human life.” He was expected to make his initial appearance in Fort Myers on Monday to face charges.
CBS News has reached out to Lang’s court-appointed attorneys for comment.
Court documents state that Lang and a co-defendant, Alex Jared Zwiefelhofer, met in 2017 in Ukraine, where Lang had been living and fighting on and off since 2015, according to the BBC. Zwiefelhofer said they were members of a volunteer battalion fighting Russian separatists, according to the Justice Department. The duo also reportedly traveled to Kenya and planned to fight terrorists. The two were reportedly detained by authorities as they tried to enter South Sudan and were deported back to the United States, the Justice Department said.
The pair reportedly got together in Florida in 2018. They allegedly killed a couple who planned to purchase firearms that Lang and Zwiefelhofer had listed for sale online. The two then allegedly robbed the victims to pay for travel to Venezuela, where they “planned to fight the Venezuelan regime,” according to the Department of Justice press release.
Neither man traveled to Venezuela and Zwiefelhofer was arrested a month later, the BBC reported. Zwiefelhofer was convicted in March and is scheduled to be sentenced in August, according to the Justice Department.
In 2018, Lang allegedly traveled to North Carolina, where he participated in a conspiracy to acquire a passport under a false name. He allegedly exchanged several firearms, a military-grade smoke grenade and about $1,500 in cash with a man named Dameon Shae Adcock in exchange for using Adcock’s information in a passport application, the Justice Department says. Lang and another co-conspirator working to travel under a false identity allegedly purchased tickets to travel from Georgia to New York and Ukraine. The others involved in the scheme pleaded guilty to charges related to the scheme and were sentenced in 2020.
In 2019, Lang was accused of misusing a passport at the US border in Arizona to obtain a Mexican visa. In total, he faces charges in three states: Florida, North Carolina and Arizona.
Lang was extradited this year after the European Court of Human Rights rejected his request to challenge the extradition under the court’s convention. If convicted, he could face a sentence of life in prison.
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