A former U.S. Army soldier who unsuccessfully sought asylum in Ukraine after allegedly murdering a Florida couple in 2018 is finally back in U.S. custody to face charges of double homicide and armed robbery.
Craig Lang, 34, made his first court appearance in Fort Myers, Florida, on Monday, federal prosecutors said in a press release. His extradition marks the end of a wild international saga dating back nearly a decade, when Lang said he served in a Ukrainian volunteer battalion in 2015-2016 fighting pro-Russian forces in the Donbass during the first phase of Moscow’s war against the country.
Along with his alleged co-conspirator Alex Zwiefelhofer, Lang is accused of then murdering a Florida couple in 2018 to fund more foreign-fighting adventures, allegedly gunning down 50-year-old Deana Lorenzo and 52-year-old Serafin “Danny” Lorenzo before stealing $3,000 the couple had brought to purchase firearms advertised for sale online.
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Zwiefelhofer, another former U.S. soldier, was convicted on several charges related to the case in March and faces sentencing in August.
Prosecutors say the pair robbed the Lorenzos in order to “pay for travel to Venezuela, where the defendants planned to fight the Venezuelan regime.” They had also traveled to Kenya and tried to enter South Sudan before being deported back to the U.S. and winding up in Florida, prosecutors said.
“Craig Austin Lang went on an international crime spree that included a double murder in Florida, attempts to travel internationally to engage in other acts of violence outside the United States, and a plot to evade law enforcement detection by trading guns, a grenade, and cash to use another person’s identifying information to apply for a U.S. passport under an assumed name,” said Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Nicole M. Argentieri, head of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division.
Lang, who pleaded not guilty to the charges Monday, according to court documents, made it back to Ukraine following the alleged 2018 murder and reportedly tried unsuccessfully to join Ukrainian forces after Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022.
After fighting extradition there for years, the European Court of Human Rights ultimately rejected his extradition challenge.
