Campus Alert Archive
Pitt

A Spring Break Trip to Punta Cana, an Interpol Yellow Notice: Pitt's HEOA Notification for Sudiksha Konanki

PAmissing personmissing studentmedium confidence
Confirmed Threat

On March 6, 2025, University of Pittsburgh junior pre-med biology student Sudiksha Konanki, 20, disappeared from the beach at the Riu República Hotel in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic, around 4 AM AST while on a spring break trip with friends. After a multi-day international search, Interpol issued a global Yellow Notice around March 12-13 at the Loudoun County Sheriff's request. Her family requested she be declared legally dead on March 18, 2025; investigators believed she had drowned.

Alerts
2
Response
—
Killed
1
Injured
0
Institution
University of Pittsburgh
Public R1 · PA
~34,000 studentsEmergency Notification Service (ENS)
Confirmed Timeline

Alert Sequence

2 messages in sequence · 2 verified verbatim

INITIAL ALERTEmail
Verified verbatimVerbatim quote from a University of Pittsburgh spokesperson, as reported by CBS News211 chars
University officials are in contact with Sudiksha Konanki's family as well as authorities in Loudoun County, Virginia, and we have offered our full support in their efforts to find her and bring her home safely.
Verbatim quote from a University of Pittsburgh spokesperson reiterated across CBS Pittsburgh, NBC News, and the Post-Gazette
Pitt's institutional voice was deliberately constrained because the disappearance occurred in international waters and the lead jurisdiction was the Dominican Republic and Loudoun County, Virginia
Konanki's family lived in Chantilly, Virginia (Loudoun County) — Pitt directs supporters to the family's home jurisdiction rather than to Pitt itself or to Punta Cana
UPDATEEmail
Verified verbatimUniversity of Pittsburgh Office of Public Safety & Emergency Management — 'Update on Sudiksha Konanki Investigation'670 chars
Since Sudiksha Konanki's reported disappearance, the University of Pittsburgh Police Department has been actively working with the Loudoun County Sheriff's Office and the following agencies in their investigation to find and bring her home safely: U.S. State Department, FBI, HSI, DEA, and the local Dominican Republic authorities. Anyone with information is urged to contact the Loudoun County Sheriff's Office at 703-777-1021 and Pitt Police at 412-624-2121. Community care resources are available for the Pitt community seeking support, including LifeSolutions for faculty and staff at 1-866-647-3432 and the University Counseling Center for students at 412-648-7930.
Published on safety.pitt.edu; Interpol issued the Yellow Notice around March 12-13, 2025, at the Loudoun County Sheriff's Office's request — Yellow Notices are global alerts for missing persons, especially for victims of unexplained disappearances
Interpol's Yellow Notice escalation is the international analog to a US Silver/AMBER alert and substantially extends the geographic reach of an HEOA notification
The Yellow Notice's appearance in a Pitt missing-student notification illustrates how HEOA can scale to fully international scope when the disappearance occurs abroad
Context

Background

Sudiksha Konanki, born December 13, 2004, was a 20-year-old University of Pittsburgh junior majoring in biology on a pre-medical track, an Indian citizen and US permanent resident living with her family in Chantilly, Virginia. On March 6, 2025, she was on a spring break trip with five female friends at the Riu República Hotel in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic. Surveillance video captured the group heading to the beach at approximately 4:15 AM AST, with Konanki walking arm-in-arm with Joshua Riibe, a 22-year-old American senior at St. Cloud State University from Rock Rapids, Iowa. Most of the group left the beach around 6 AM, leaving Konanki and Riibe behind. Riibe told prosecutors that they had been swept out by a wave; surveillance video later corroborated his account. The University of Pittsburgh announced it was in contact with Konanki's family and authorities in Loudoun County, Virginia, where her family lived. The case rapidly escalated internationally: Interpol issued a global Yellow Notice around March 12-13, 2025 at the Loudoun County Sheriff's request, and a Dominican judge later granted freedom to the man last seen with her after passport seizure. On March 18, 2025, her family asked Dominican authorities to declare her legally deceased, believing she had drowned. The case is exceptional in the Higher Education Opportunity Act of 2008 HEOA archive because the missing-student notification involved an international disappearance where the host country had primary investigative authority and Interpol was the most consequential escalation channel — a pattern that will likely become more common as study-abroad and spring-break travel expand.
Analysis

Key Findings

Konanki's HEOA missing-student notification involved an international disappearance — testing the framework's reach when the host country has primary investigative authority
Interpol's Yellow Notice global alert is the international analog to US Silver and AMBER alerts and the most consequential escalation channel for the case
Pitt's institutional voice was deliberately quiet because the disappearance was 1,500+ miles from campus and Loudoun County (Virginia, where her family lived) was the procedural lead
The case marks one of the first HEOA-era missing-student notifications to feature both an Interpol Yellow Notice and a family request for legal declaration of death within the same 30-day window
Outcome
Konanki's body was never recovered. Her family requested she be legally declared deceased on March 18, 2025. Investigators believed she drowned and found no evidence of foul play. The man last seen with her — Joshua Riibe, 22, a senior at St. Cloud State University from Rock Rapids, Iowa — was questioned and held under police-controlled detention in Punta Cana for 11 days; a Dominican judge later granted his habeas corpus motion and he returned to the United States. He was never charged.
Provenance

Sources

  1. Source
    Disappearance of Sudiksha Konanki (Wikipedia)
    en.wikipedia.org
  2. News
    Sudiksha Konanki: What we know about the US college student missing in Dominican Republic (CNN)
    cnn.com
  3. News
    Interpol issues global alert for Pitt student Sudiksha Konanki (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)
    post-gazette.com
  4. News
    What we know about the search for U.S. student missing in the Dominican Republic (NPR)
    npr.org
  5. News
    What to know as the search for Sudiksha Konanki, the missing University of Pittsburgh student, continues (NBC News)
    nbcnews.com
  6. News
    Family of U.S. student missing in the Dominican Republic believes she drowned (NPR)
    npr.org
  7. News
    Missing student Sudiksha Konanki vanished in Punta Cana on spring break (CBS News)
    cbsnews.com
Tags
missing-studentmissing-personheoapennsylvaniapublic-r1internationalinterpolyellow-noticespring-breakdrowningdominican-republic
Added May 2026Updated May 2026Via ingestion