Trump-authorized team secures release of US businessman from Myanmar

Release marks highest-level US engagement with Myanmar junta since 2021 coup

A U.S. diplomatic team authorized by President Trump secured the release of American businessman Adam Castillo from a Myanmar prison on Sept. 16 after three months of detention, the highest-level engagement between Washington and Myanmar’s ruling military junta since the 2021 coup. Details of the effort, some of which had not been previously reported, offer new insight into how the Trump administration pursues the goal of freeing Americans detained abroad.

Castillo, a 40-year-old retired Marine from California who owns a security company in Myanmar, was detained at Yangon’s airport in June under a military regime that the U.S. does not recognize. He was later charged with breach of trust following a dispute over a $300,000 lobbying contract between AmCham Myanmar, the local American Chamber of Commerce, and Mercury Public Affairs, a Washington firm with ties to the incoming Trump administration.

The mission to free Castillo involved the office of Adam Boehler, the administration’s special envoy for hostage response, and was backed by Vice President JD Vance, according to U.S. officials. Boehler called Vance, who raised the case with Trump, whose support cleared the way for the team to travel to Myanmar on a chartered jet and secure Castillo’s release, the officials said. Boehler’s office and the White House may get involved regardless of whether the person has been designated “wrongfully detained,” an official label that did not apply to Castillo.

The White House declined to comment. A State Department spokesman said the department regularly engages with Myanmar authorities on issues affecting U.S. interests and that, in this case, a U.S. delegation had traveled to the country and secured Castillo’s release through meetings with Myanmar officials.

The detention stemmed from a contracting dispute that began shortly after the November 2024 election. Castillo was president of AmCham Myanmar at the time, leading a chamber that represents American companies still active in the country, including Amazon Web Services and Mastercard. Two weeks after the election, Castillo signed a $300,000 contract with Mercury Public Affairs to help the chamber build relationships in Washington and advise on U.S. sanctions, according to a copy of the contract seen by the Journal.

Castillo told the Journal he saw Trump’s re-election as a unique opportunity to reset U.S.-Myanmar relations and considered Mercury a natural fit. One of Mercury’s managing directors, Peter Kucik, had experience working on Myanmar, including at the Treasury Department office that oversees U.S. sanctions, and the firm had close ties to the incoming administration through Susie Wiles, Trump’s chief of staff and a former co-chair at Mercury, Castillo said. “They had a lot of people that were very MAGA there,” he said. Wiles declined to comment through a spokeswoman.

The contract established an initial fee of $200,000 until May 2025 and an automatic monthly renewal of $33,333, with total payments reaching $300,000, according to a list of transactions seen by the Journal. Payments did not come from AmCham Myanmar itself; Mercury was paid from the U.S. accounts of Misfit Technologies, a company whose Myanmar-based affiliate was a chamber member, according to a public lobbying disclosure. The disclosure said payments from AmCham Myanmar’s accounts were not possible because of currency controls imposed by Myanmar’s government.

But Khin Maung Win, who succeeded Castillo as AmCham Myanmar president in June 2025, said the chamber’s board never authorized the contract and that Castillo and Danny Kyaw, an Australian former executive director of the chamber, hid the arrangement from the chamber’s new leadership. Castillo said the board backed the contract and was not required to give formal approval. Kyaw, in a written response to questions, denied concealing the contract.

In January, a legal review commissioned by AmCham Myanmar and seen by the Journal determined that Misfit’s payments to Mercury could expose the chamber to criminal charges in Myanmar, including money laundering, tax evasion and circumventing capital controls. In March, the board, which had already terminated Kyaw from his executive director post, decided not to renew the memberships of Misfit and Castillo’s security company.

Within weeks, a lawyer hired by Castillo and Misfit Technologies Chief Executive Munimul Islam warned AmCham Myanmar governors that the two men were planning to file a defamation suit, according to a copy viewed by the Journal. Khin Maung Win told the Journal those legal threats left the chamber no choice but to alert Myanmar police. “This is not a pleasant thing to do,” he said. “But the reality is, misadministrations have to be corrected.”

On June 8, AmCham Myanmar’s executive director filed a report with Myanmar police on behalf of the chamber’s board, according to Khin Maung Win and the report itself, which the Journal has seen. In the report, AmCham alleged that Castillo, Kyaw and Islam entered and arranged payment for the Mercury contract without the knowledge and authorization of its board of governors. Castillo was out of the country promoting his memoir at the time.

The book traces his transformation from a left-leaning Marine Corps officer disillusioned after a deployment in Afghanistan into a pro-MAGA Republican. Much of the book revolves around his two years as president of AmCham Myanmar, and it contains passages critical of the junta, including on its killing of protesters after the 2021 coup. The book climaxes with a meeting Castillo secured in Vice President JD Vance’s office in July 2025 — where Castillo says he urged the vice president’s advisers to have the U.S. strike deals to obtain rare-earth elements from Myanmar — and with his dreams of running for office.

When Castillo returned to Myanmar in June, he was detained at the airport by officers from the country’s Criminal Investigation Department, or CID. Kyaw said he was taken in the next day. Locked in an office at a Yangon police station, Castillo realized he was not entirely out of luck: his Apple Watch was still linked to his iPhone, which hours earlier had been confiscated by the officers now sleeping next door. He tapped out a message on the watch at 4:51 a.m. on June 12 to a friend in Washington: “DETAINED AT MYANMAR AIRPORT. No charge. No arrest. Denying my lawyer.”

In July, Castillo said he and Kyaw were formally charged with breach of trust over the Mercury contract. After two weeks at CID headquarters, the two men were moved to Insein Prison, a colonial-era complex built by the British that is known for its squalid and overcrowded conditions.

Castillo, who describes himself as “MAGA to the bone,” said his experience was different. “I’m the prince of Insein Prison,” he told the Journal in an interview at a Bangkok hotel days after his release. “I get whatever I want.” “Even the police didn’t really realize, I think, how big of an international incident this was going to cause,” Castillo said in the interview. For much of his detention, he said he had his own cell, attended church services organized by Nigerians serving time for online scamming, received food packages and had access to a red-light helmet he believes is good for his hair and scalp. The helmet was kept at the warden’s office, where Castillo said he used it most mornings.

Outside the prison, family, friends and others mobilized for his release. His sister, Amanda Castillo, engaged Global Reach, a Washington-based nonprofit that works to bring home Americans it believes have been detained wrongfully or kidnapped. Global Reach tapped its contacts in the White House and the State Department, as did Castillo’s friends in the Republican Party. Global Reach said it was “confident that this administration’s commitment to bringing Americans home would lead to swift action, and we are grateful it did.”

U.S. officials said there were indications that Myanmar was willing to let Castillo go but bureaucratic obstacles delayed action, including uncertainty about negotiating with the junta and questions about which agency would take the lead. Castillo’s support for Trump and the MAGA movement did not affect the decision to push for his release, the officials said.

On Sept. 16, Castillo said, Myanmar military police escorted him onto a chartered plane and the American delegation left the country. Myanmar’s government said it had released him to foster “friendly diplomatic relations with all nations” and sent him off with a gift box of rum and coffee, courtesy of Myanmar President Min Aung Hlaing, whose name remains on a U.S. sanctions list.

“President Trump saved my life,” Castillo said. “President Trump is the reason I’m here right now.”

Five days after Castillo left Myanmar, Kyaw pleaded guilty to breach of trust after the judge told him he would be sentenced to time served and released, Kyaw said. Within days, he, too, was out of Myanmar.

Spanish police arrested Misfit CEO Islam in Barcelona on Tuesday, acting on an Interpol red notice lodged by Myanmar in connection with the AmCham case, according to his lawyer. In a voice message to the Journal, Islam repeated that he had done nothing wrong.

The release marked the highest-level engagement between Washington and Myanmar’s ruling junta since the 2021 coup that ousted its elected leader, the Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, and plunged the country into civil war, the Journal reported. The White House in several administrations, Democratic and Republican, has been involved in efforts regarding the release of Americans, according to former officials familiar with the process.