Bestselling author Barbara Stcherbatcheff is arrested in Bahamas for ‘kidnapping son’ for two years

A best-selling ‘sexposé’ author has been arrested in the Bahamas for allegedly kidnapping her son and fleeing the world for almost two years, DailyMail.com can exclusively reveal.

Barbara Stcherbatcheff, an American expat, investment banker and former newspaper columnist, who wrote a book subtitled ‘The Devil Wears Pinstripes’ disappeared in February 2023 along with her eight-year-old son Valentin Stankowski.

The blonde divorcee, 42, picked up the youngster from her ex-husband’s home in Zurich, Switzerland, but failed to return him at the end of a planned weeklong visit, according to authorities.

Interpol has issued a ‘yellow alert’ for missing persons, listing several countries – Britain, Ireland, Croatia, the US, Mexico, Belize and Costa Rica – as possible places where the fugitive mother could have taken Valentin.

But DailyMail.com can reveal the tug-of-war mystery was finally solved on Tuesday when Bahamian officers raided an exclusive gated community on the island of New Providence and found the pair.

Stcherbatcheff was staying 8,000 kilometers from her home in Zurich with a local man described as her new boyfriend, a police source told DailyMail.com.

She was arrested in the exclusive Lyford Cay, a private paradise home to a slew of super-rich expats, including members of the Bacardi family and British businessman Joe Lewis. Homes there can fetch as much as $70 million.

Former residents include Sean Connery and author Arthur Hailey.

Valentin, who has dual Swiss and British nationality, turned 10 in October. He was found unharmed.

He is being cared for by island authorities as they await the arrival of his father Daniel Stankowski on a flight from Switzerland, our source added.

Stcherbatcheff, a former columnist for The London Paper and author of the 2009 Sunday Times bestseller Confessions of a City Girl, was taken into custody.

Interpol has not released any further details, but the ex-couple are said to have been embroiled in a heated custody dispute before Valentin went missing.

Appearing before a Bahamian court on Wednesday, Stcherbatcheff gave her name as Barbara Lynn Murphy and insisted she had not gone by Stcherbatcheff in years.

Magistrate Kara Turnquest-Deveaux informed the little suspect that Swiss authorities were requesting her extradition on charges of kidnapping and child theft.

Prosecutor Darnell Dorsette said Valentin was safely in the custody of social services.

For now, Stcherbatcheff will remain locked up in Nassau’s grim Fox Hill Prison, the same rat-infested confinement where her compatriot Lindsay Shiver is being held as she waits to stand trial for plotting her husband’s murder.

Stcherbatcheff grew up in Woodstock, Illinois, attended Colgate University in New York and attended the prestigious Tuck Bridge program at Ivy League Dartmouth.

She emigrated to Britain to pursue a career in investment banking, later becoming a journalist and writing for Newsweek and The Daily Telegraph.

From 2008 to 2009, Stcherbatcheff wrote an anonymous ‘City Girl’ column for The London Paper, exposing the excesses of financial life.

She developed the theme further in Confessions of a City Girl, subtitled The Devil Wears Pinstripes under the pseudonym Suzana S to provide a wild insider’s account of the City of London that received critical acclaim.

“When city girl Barbara Stcherbatcheff first entered the Square Mile, she had no idea of ​​the struggle for survival she would face over the next five years,” reads the book’s promotional blurb.

“But despite lap dancing clubs and millions of dollars in losses; divorces in the city and the worst recession since the 1930s, City Girl was still standing. She had taken on the boys at their own game and won.”

Stcherbatcheff gave several interviews after the book’s release, telling German newspaper Der Speigel: ‘Most people imagine me to be a little crazier.

‘For example, as a city girl I used to curse when I lost money. But my male colleagues were much worse.

“They banged on the tables, threw the mouse across the room and smashed the monitors when things weren’t going well.”

In 2011, she claimed the Guinness World Record for running a marathon in an animal costume, completing the feat in three hours, 42 minutes and 11 seconds while dressed as a peacock.

A year later, Stcherbatcheff recorded a news segment for the BBC in which she lambasted the “sheer arrogance and cockiness” of her male counterparts in the wake of a financial scandal that saw former Barclays CEO Bob Diamond resign.

“I worked in the financial center of London for five years, surrounded by the fast cars, the luxurious lifestyle and the champagne that many people envy,” Stcherbatcheff explains.

‘Sounds great, right? For the boys, absolutely. But there is a dark side to the fun and games.”

Her antidote to the greed and risk-taking that she believed was endemic in banking was to put women in top positions.

“They say trading is a man’s game, but I don’t believe the hype,” Stcherbatcheff added.

‘Everyone knows that women are more intuitive, less aggressive, selfish and power-hungry than men.

“What this means is that women tend to be more consistent traders who don’t suffer big losses.”

In one 2014 article for Newsweek Stcherbatcheff explained why she, and a growing number of Americans, gave up their citizenship due to the burden of filing complicated tax returns from abroad.

By 2016, she had moved again to Switzerland, where she worked as head of corporate communications for international investment firm RobecoSAM, according to online profiles.

On X, formerly Twitter, Stcherbatcheff described himself as a “journalist, author and economic commentator. Marathon Runner’, but her profile has been inactive since 2014.

The link to her personal website no longer works.