Close Protection for UHNW Families in Custody Disputes

Close protection for UHNW families when a custody dispute becomes a security problem

Close protection for UHNW families is usually planned around outside threats: kidnappers who want money, stalkers who want attention, burglars who want what is inside the house. Families rarely plan for the possibility that the people organizing harm to their children could be connected to the family itself, or could be professionals hired by someone the children know. Yet a custody conflict between wealthy parents is one of the situations where I have seen protective planning matter a great deal, and it is one of the situations that families are least willing to talk about until something has already happened.

A trial in Germany has put this subject in front of the public again. On October 16, 2026, the BBC reported on the long running trial in Hamburg of businesswoman Christina Block, heir to a well known German steakhouse chain, and six co defendants. According to the BBC account of the indictment, prosecutors allege that two of her children, then aged 10 and 13, were forcibly taken from their father in Denmark during the New Year celebrations of 2023 to 2024 while the family watched a fireworks display. Prosecutors say several men ambushed and beat the father, put the children into a car, changed vehicles near the German border and held the children in Baden-Württemberg until their mother collected them on January 2, 2024.

The BBC reported that Ms Block denies knowing about the planned abduction and that her defence argues an Israeli security team acted on its own initiative. All defendants deny wrongdoing except one man, identified in court as Jonathan G, who admitted his involvement but told the court he believed he was taking part in a rescue operation. On October 22, 2026, the regional newspaper Augsburger Allgemeine reported that the witness list was nearly exhausted after more than 80 hearing days and that a verdict could come at the end of November. The presumption of innocence applies to everyone charged, and nothing in this article should be read as a view on guilt.

I am not writing about that family. Their case belongs in a courtroom, and the children involved deserve privacy. I am writing about the pattern the case describes, because it is a pattern every family in a contested separation should understand: a long legal dispute over children, conflicting court decisions in two countries, a public holiday with the family outside and distracted, a fast move by a group of people who knew where the children would be, and a security operation on the other side that, according to its own participants, believed it was doing the right thing. This article supports the family protection section of our complete 2026 guide to high net worth security, and it builds on our earlier piece on school run security for UHNW children.

Key takeaways

• Close protection for UHNW families has to account for custody conflict as a real abduction risk, not just kidnapping for ransom by strangers.
• The dangerous moments in a custody dispute are predictable: handovers, school pick ups, holidays, public events and any trip that crosses a border.
• A protective plan for children in a contested separation must work strictly inside the law and alongside the family lawyer, never around a court order.
• Recommended HNW security teams decline “recovery” or “repatriation” work that would mean taking children by force, no matter who is paying or how the job is described.
• Private security for high net worth family members in this situation is mostly quiet work: clear rules on who may collect a child, trained household staff, a reliable home perimeter and fast contact with police.
• High net worth security services should document everything they see, because in custody matters the record can matter as much as the response.

Why custody conflict belongs in a family protection plan

When families ask me about threats to their children, they usually picture a stranger. That picture is understandable, because it is the one that appears in films and in the news. In practice, a child in a wealthy family faces several different kinds of risk, and they call for different measures. A stranger who wants ransom has to find the child, learn the routine and get close. A person who is already part of the child’s world, or who is working for someone who is, may know all of that already. They may know the school, the nanny, the holiday plans and the gate code. They may even be someone the child would walk toward without hesitation.

Parental abduction and attempted abduction in custody disputes are recognized problems in many countries, and they are not limited to wealthy families. What changes with wealth is the scale of resources that can be brought to bear. A parent with money can hire investigators, rent vehicles and houses, fly people across borders and, as the German indictment alleges, engage people who describe themselves as security professionals. The other parent, and the children, then face something closer to an organized operation than a desperate act by one person.

That is why close protection for UHNW families has to include an honest look at family conflict. I do not say that lightly. The large majority of separations, even bitter ones, never come near this point. But a protective plan that assumes the threat can come solely from outside the family will miss the scenario that, in a small number of cases, turns out to be the real one.

What makes a custody dispute higher risk

Over the years I have come to watch for a handful of signals. None of them proves anything on its own, and a family lawyer is always the right person to interpret the legal side. From a protective point of view, though, these are the situations where I would want a plan in place:

• Court decisions in more than one country that point in different directions, so that each parent believes the law is on their side.
• A parent who has already kept a child beyond an agreed visit, or who has talked about doing so.
• Significant money and international connections on either side, including second homes, private aviation and staff abroad.
• Threats, even ones made in anger, about “bringing the children home” or “doing whatever it takes”.
• Third parties who have become emotionally invested, such as grandparents, new partners or advisors, and who may act without telling the parents.
• Any sign that private investigators or security contractors are watching the children, the home or the other parent.

The German reporting is a reminder of the last two points in particular. According to the Augsburger Allgemeine, the mother told the court that she had always wanted an agreed solution and made statements in court about decisions taken by her father, whom prosecutors had stopped investigating. Whatever the court decides, the reporting shows how many people beyond the two parents can become involved in a long custody fight, and how hard it can be to know who is making decisions.

The protective goal is different from the legal goal

In a custody dispute, each parent’s lawyer is working toward a legal outcome. The protective goal is narrower and, in a way, simpler: the children should be safe, physically and emotionally, wherever they are lawfully living, and no one should be able to take them by force or deception. Private security for high net worth family members in this setting does not take sides in the legal argument. It protects the children and the adults lawfully caring for them, it respects the orders that are in force, and it keeps a careful record so that the courts and the police have accurate information if something happens.

That distinction matters because it shapes every decision a protective team makes. A team that starts to think of itself as working for one side against the other will slowly begin to make choices that are about winning the case rather than protecting the children. That is the moment when security work becomes dangerous, both for the family and for the people doing it.

The moments that matter in close protection for UHNW families during a separation

The alleged abduction described in the German indictment took place on a holiday night, outdoors, during a fireworks display. I want to be careful not to draw conclusions about a case that is still before a court, but the setting itself is familiar to anyone who has protected children. Holidays, public events and travel days are when routines loosen, adults are distracted, crowds and noise provide cover, and the people around a child are thinking about anything other than security. In a custody dispute, those same days are often the ones that both parents and the other side know about well in advance, because they are written into the visitation schedule.

When I build close protection for UHNW families in a contested separation, I start by listing the moments when the children are in transition or in the open. These are the places where a protective plan earns its keep.

Handovers

The handover between parents is the moment where conflict and opportunity meet. Both sides know the time and place. Emotions are high. There may be new partners, grandparents or staff present. A handover that happens on a public street, outside a school or in a parking lot gives anyone who wants to interfere a predictable window.

A safer handover is planned like a short protective movement. It takes place at a location agreed in writing with the lawyers, ideally somewhere with staff, cameras and controlled access, and sometimes at a supervised contact center if a court has ordered one. The vehicle arriving is known in advance. The adults handing over and receiving are named. A protective agent stays close to the children without inserting themselves into the family conversation, and a second person watches the surroundings rather than the people. If something does not match the plan, such as an unknown vehicle, an unexpected adult or a change of location sent by message at the last minute, the default is to pause, call the lawyer and, if needed, call the police, rather than improvise.

School and activities

Schools are generally good at controlling who enters the building. They are less consistent about who is allowed to collect a child, especially when both parents have historically been on the approved list and a court order has since changed things. In a contested separation, the school should hold a current copy of any relevant order, a short list of named adults who may collect each child, photographs of those adults, and a phone number for the parent with day to day care. Our article on school run security for UHNW children in Los Angeles covers the movement side of this in more detail.

Sports clubs, music lessons, tutors and holiday camps are often weaker than schools. They change staff frequently, they release children at the end of a session into a crowd of parents and nannies, and they may never have been told about a dispute. A family office or household manager can take on the simple task of briefing each of these places, in writing, about who may collect the child and what to do if someone else turns up.

Holidays and public events

New Year, national holidays, birthdays and school breaks are the days when children are highly visible and hard to predict. Families go to fireworks, parades, concerts and markets. Children wander, adults socialize, phones are hard to hear, and the crowd makes it hard to spot someone moving with purpose. For a family in a custody dispute, a public event on a date that the other side knows about deserves a specific plan: who is watching which child, where the vehicle is, where the family regroups if they are separated, and whether the event is worth attending this year at all.

I am not suggesting that children in a contested family should be kept at home on every holiday. That would be a terrible outcome for them. I am suggesting that the adults responsible for them think through the evening before it happens, and that someone in the group is responsible for nothing except the children.

Travel and borders

The German case, as described by the BBC, involved children moving across an international border by car and a change of vehicles before the crossing. International movement is the step that turns a domestic dispute into a matter of foreign courts, extradition and long delays. That is why international travel with children deserves special attention when a separation is contested.

The legal tools differ by country, and the family lawyer must lead on them. They can include court orders restricting travel, holding passports with a neutral party, and alerts in passport systems for children where the law allows. The protective side is more practical: knowing where the passports are, keeping travel plans on a need to know basis, briefing drivers and aviation staff, and ensuring that a child’s travel always matches what the lawyers have agreed. Our piece on close protection for UHNW families traveling abroad explains how we plan movements in unfamiliar places.

Personal security for high networth individuals caught in a custody fight

When people talk about protecting children, they sometimes forget the adults. In the German indictment, prosecutors allege that the father was ambushed and beaten in front of the children. Any parent caring for children during a contested dispute may become a target, not because someone wants to hurt them for its own sake but because they are the obstacle between an abductor and the child. Personal security for high networth individuals in this position is part of protecting the children.

In practice that means the parent with day to day care should know the basic protective habits that we teach any principal: varying times where they can, paying attention to vehicles and faces that recur near the home or school, keeping the phone charged and emergency numbers on speed dial, and not engaging physically if a group approaches. The goal is to survive, call for help and remember details for the police, not to win a confrontation. A protective agent nearby changes the equation, because it means the parent does not have to choose between their own safety and the child’s.

New partners, grandparents and staff

Custody conflicts often draw in new partners and extended family. Some of those people support the children. Some become deeply invested in one side and may make decisions of their own. Household staff, such as nannies and drivers, can be caught in the middle, especially if they worked for the family before the separation and still feel loyal to both parents.

Staff need a clear, simple brief. They need to know who may enter the home, who may take the children anywhere, what to say if a former family member calls with instructions, and how to report anything that worries them. Vetting matters here as well, and our guide to household staff vetting for UHNW families covers what to check. The important point in a custody dispute is that staff should never be put in the position of deciding, on the spot, whether to obey an adult the children know. The rules should decide that in advance.

Home security for high net worth individuals during a contested separation

The home where the children live is the place they should feel safest, and it is often the place where a determined person knows the layout well. A parent who lived in the house before the separation may still know the gate codes, the alarm habits, the blind spots and which door the staff leave unlocked. Home security for high net worth individuals in this situation starts with a simple step that families often postpone: change everything that a former resident could still know.

• Change gate, alarm and door codes, and reissue keys and access cards.
• Review who has app access to cameras, locks and alarm systems, and remove anyone who should no longer have it.
• Check the alarm monitoring company’s call list and passwords, so a former resident cannot cancel an alarm by phone.
• Walk the perimeter with a fresh eye, looking at the routes someone familiar with the property would use.
• Agree with neighbors, where relationships allow, that they will call if they see unfamiliar vehicles waiting near the house.

None of these steps requires turning the house into a fortress. They simply remove the inside knowledge that a past resident or their contractors might rely on. Our article on private security for high net worth family in occupied homes covers the night time routines that keep people inside safe if someone does try to get in.

Watching for surveillance

Organized attempts to take children from a home usually involve preparation. People need to learn when the children leave, who is with them and which route the car takes. That preparation can sometimes be noticed: the same car parked down the street on different days, a person walking past the school gate at every pick up, drone flights over the garden, or questions asked of staff by someone claiming to be a delivery driver or a journalist.

A residential team can look for these signs as part of normal work, and a parent with day to day care can be taught what to notice without becoming anxious. When something does recur, the right response is to record it, with times, descriptions and photographs where lawful, and pass it to the family lawyer and, where appropriate, the police. It is not to confront the person or follow them. In a custody setting, a confrontation can become a legal problem of its own, and it can also tell the other side what the family has noticed.

What recommended HNW security teams refuse to do

The part of the German case that stays with me as a security professional is the role that security contractors are alleged to have played. The BBC reported that the man who admitted involvement told the court he thought he was taking part in a rescue operation, and that the head of the Israeli security team, who is not on trial but faces future proceedings, told the court that the mother and the family lawyer had known about the planned “repatriation operation”. The defendants deny that. I cannot judge who is telling the truth, and I will not try. What I can say is that the language matters. Words like rescue, recovery and repatriation can make an act that a prosecutor calls abduction sound like protection.

Recommended HNW security teams do not take that kind of work. A protective firm can lawfully protect a child where the child lawfully lives. It can escort a child to a handover that a court has ordered. It can support the police, the courts and the family lawyer with accurate information. It does not take children from another parent by force or deception, whatever a client believes about the rights and wrongs of the dispute, and whatever another country’s court has said. If a lawful route exists to return a child, that route runs through lawyers, courts and authorities, not through a team in a rented van.

I raise this because families in long, painful custody fights are sometimes approached by people who promise a fast solution. Some describe themselves as former soldiers or intelligence officers. Some are genuine, and some are not. The question to ask is not about their background. It is about what they are proposing to do, and whether a family lawyer would sign off on it in writing. If the answer is no, the proposal should end there.

How to vet a protective provider when children are involved

Choosing high net worth security services for a family with children in a contested separation is different from hiring a driver or a residential guard. A few questions help separate a serious provider from a risky one:

• Is the company properly licensed where it operates, and can it show that license? In California, for example, private patrol operators are licensed by the state.
• Will the provider work alongside the family lawyer and accept that the lawyer sets the legal limits?
• Does the provider have a written policy on custody matters, and does that policy rule out taking children from another parent?
• Can the provider explain how its agents are trained to manage handovers, school collections and confrontations without escalating them?
• Does the provider keep records that would stand up in court, and does it understand privacy and recording laws in each country where the family spends time?
• Will the provider tell the family “no” when a request goes too far?

That last question tells you a great deal. A protective team that never pushes back is a team that may one day follow a client into serious trouble.

Family office high net worth individuals security and the custody file

Many wealthy families run their lives through a family office, and the family office often ends up as the practical coordinator during a separation. It pays the lawyers, arranges the travel, manages the staff and holds the documents. That makes family office high net worth individuals security part of the protective picture, whether the office realizes it or not.

Security for UHNW family offices in a custody dispute starts with information. The office knows the children’s schedules, travel plans, schools and medical details. In a separation, people who once had legitimate access to that information may no longer be entitled to it, and some of them may still be on email threads, shared calendars or messaging groups. A short review of who can see what, followed by a clean break where needed, removes a quiet source of risk.

The office also needs a simple incident plan. If a child is not where they should be, who calls whom, in what order, and within how many minutes? Who holds copies of the court orders, the passports and recent photographs? Who speaks to the police, and who speaks to the school? In the first hour of a missing child situation, time spent searching for a phone number or a document is time that cannot be recovered. Our article on police liaison for high net worth families explains how to build those relationships before they are needed, and our guide to the first 72 hours after an incident covers what follows.

Keeping the children’s world small and steady

Children in a custody dispute are already under strain. The German court’s psychiatric expert, according to the Augsburger Allgemeine, described the children in that case as severely traumatized. Protective measures should never add to that burden. A child should not feel that they are under guard in their own home or that the adults around them are afraid.

That is why private security for high net worth family members in these situations is usually quiet. An agent who works the school run as a familiar driver, a residential officer who stays at the gate rather than in the kitchen, and staff who follow clear rules without discussing the dispute in front of the children all help. Children notice tension. They also notice calm, consistent adults. The goal is for them to experience the second.

High net worth security around court dates and rulings

One pattern I have seen repeatedly is that the risk in a custody dispute rises around legal milestones. A hearing date, a judgment, an appeal deadline or a ruling in another country can change how one side sees its options. A parent who has been waiting for a court to agree with them may decide, after a loss, that the courts will never help. A parent who has just won may relax at exactly the wrong moment. Third parties may decide that it is time to act before an order takes effect.

The BBC account of the German case describes exactly this kind of collision of rulings: a Hamburg court found that the mother had custody and that the children should be returned, while a Danish court later ruled that, although the children had been brought to Denmark unlawfully, they could not be taken back. According to the indictment, the alleged abduction came months after that Danish decision. I draw no conclusion about motive in that case, but the general lesson is clear. High net worth security for a family in a contested separation should follow the legal calendar.

In practice, that means the protective team and the family lawyer should share a simple timeline of upcoming hearings and decisions, and the team should raise its posture for a period before and after each one. Raising posture rarely means more visible guards. It usually means confirming every collection personally rather than by message, adding a second adult to handovers, avoiding unplanned outings for a few days, reminding the school of the collection list, and making sure the residential team knows that this is a period to pay closer attention. When the ruling comes, the team should be ready for either outcome, including the reaction of people who disagree with it.

Second homes and staff abroad

Wealthy families often have homes in more than one country, and that is exactly where custody disputes become hardest to manage. A child who spends summers at a house abroad may be staying in a place where the family’s local staff have long ties to the other parent, where the local police have never heard of the dispute, and where the court orders from home may carry little weight until they are recognized locally.

Before a child travels to a second home during a contested period, I would want to know who is at the property, who controls access, which local lawyer can be reached quickly, and which police station covers the area. I would want the protective plan to work the same way abroad as it does at home: named adults, written collection rules and a team that knows what to do if someone unexpected arrives at the gate. Our article on high net worth security for empty homes and second homes covers the property side of this.

The first minutes if something goes wrong

Families sometimes ask what a protective agent would actually do if a group tried to take a child in front of them. The honest answer is that the agent’s job is to keep the child and the caring parent as safe as possible, to break contact and move them away if that can be done, to call the police immediately and to remember everything: faces, vehicles, plates, direction of travel and times. An agent is not there to fight a group of people in a crowd at a fireworks display, and a plan that relies on that is not a plan. The protection comes mainly from making the attempt harder to set up in the first place and from making the response fast and well informed if it does happen.

After the first minutes, the work moves to the police, the lawyers and, in an international case, the authorities in more than one country. The protective team’s records, the family office’s documents and the school’s collection list then become evidence. That is another reason to set them up carefully and keep them current, and it is one of the clearest examples of how security for UHNW family offices supports the protection of the children themselves.

Where MSB Protection in house research and development fits in

At MSB Protection we carry out our own in house research and development on how protective plans work for families with children, including how handovers, school collections and holiday movements can be planned so that agents stay close without intruding on family life. That work draws on years of protecting families in Southern California and internationally, and on lessons from cases where the threat came from inside a family’s own circle. We use it to write custody aware protective plans that sit alongside the family lawyer’s advice rather than in competition with it.

A short checklist for families in a contested separation

• Ask your family lawyer which court orders are in force in each country, and keep certified copies where the protective team and the school can reach them.
• Agree handover locations and times in writing, and treat each handover as a planned movement.
• Give every school, club and tutor a written list of adults who may collect each child.
• Change gate, alarm and door codes, app access and monitoring passwords that a former resident might know.
• Brief household staff on who may enter and who may take the children anywhere, and tell them they will never be blamed for refusing.
• Plan holidays and public events in advance, with one adult responsible for nothing except the children.
• Keep passports secure and make sure any travel matches what the lawyers have agreed.
• Record anything that suggests surveillance, and pass it to the lawyer and the police rather than confronting anyone.
• Vet any security provider on what it will refuse to do, not just on what it can do.
• Make sure the family office has a one page incident plan for a child who is not where they should be.

Close protection for UHNW families means planning for the conflict nobody wants

The Hamburg trial is still underway, and a verdict may come at the end of November according to German reporting. Whatever the court decides, the case has already shown how a custody dispute between wealthy parents can grow into something that involves hired teams, international borders and children taken during a holiday night, as the indictment alleges. Close protection for UHNW families has to take that possibility seriously, not because many separations end that way, but because the families who need a plan rarely know it until the moment arrives.

The protective answer is not dramatic. It is lawful, quiet and well organized: clear rules about who may collect a child, secure handovers, a home that former residents cannot open, staff who know what to do, a family office that can act in minutes, and a protective team that will not cross the line into taking children by force. For the wider program that surrounds this work, read our complete 2026 overview of high net worth security. If your family is facing a contested separation and you would like a confidential review, our security assessment team can look at your home, routines and handovers, our executive protection agents can cover movements, and our residential security service can protect the home. You can contact us for a confidential conversation.

Sources

• BBC News, Trial of German steakhouse heiress that sparked a huge spy scandal, October 16, 2026
• Augsburger Allgemeine, Prozess um Entführung der Kinder von Unternehmerin Christina Block endet bald, October 16, 2026, updated October 22, 2026

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About Michael Braun

Michael Braun is a former Special Unit Operator, former Manager at Gavin de Becker & Associates, and Founder & CEO of MSB Protection, an executive protection and residential security firm serving high-net-worth and ultra-high-net-worth clients.

Braun has built his career at the intersection of specialized protective operations, executive protection, residential security, protective intelligence, and security risk management. His experience spans special-unit operations, leadership within Gavin de Becker & Associates, and the development and oversight of private protection programs within demanding UHNW environments.

He has been recognized by The Top 100 Magazine as a leading CEO in the private security field and is the subject of an upcoming Marquis Who’s Who feature highlighting his leadership and contributions to the profession.

Today, Braun is recognized for his work in executive protection, UHNW estate security, residential protection, protective intelligence, adversarial security assessments, and security auditing throughout Beverly Hills and Southern California.

His work focuses on moving private security beyond simply “providing a body” and toward intelligence-led, risk-based protection programs designed to identify vulnerabilities before an adversary can exploit them.

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