Wisconsin authorities say they believe a man reported missing from a kayak trip in August faked his disappearance and is now somewhere in Europe.

Ryan Borgwardt, 44, was reported missing on August 12 when he didn’t come home from a fishing trip. Searchers found truck, his overturned kayak, and a tackle box with his keys and identification inside in the course of an extensive search of the area around Green Lake, Green Lake County Sheriff Mark Podoll said in a press conference on Friday.

Podoll said that the investigation began turning in a different direction last month, when authorities learned that Borgwardt’s name had been checked by Canadian law enforcement the day after he was reported missing.

Then, he said, they learned that Borgwardt had reported his passport stolen and obtained another one in May, but after his disappearance, his family easily located the original passport.

A forensic examination of a laptop found that he had replaced the hard drive and cleared his browsers on the day he disappeared and had manually synced the laptop with the cloud the day before. They also found he moved funds to foreign banks and changed the emails associated with all his financial accounts on the day he disappeared.

Futher discoveries include communications with a woman from Uzbekistan, a new $375,000 life insurance policy, and the purchase of airline gift cards.

“Due to these discoveries of the new evidence, we were sure that Ryan was not in our lake,” Podoll said on Friday.

Podoll praised Bordwardt’s family, saying he could not imagine what they were going through.

“They thought that their dad was drowned. A day ago, they found out that he wasn’t,” he said of the family’s three children.

Podoll said search efforts at the lake were concluded, after 54 days, as a result of the new discoveries.

Investigators are still looking for Borgwardt and for any crimes that may have been committed. He also said they will pursue reimbursement for public funds expended on the search for a man who had not, in fact, disappeared on a fishing trip.

Anyone who has information should contact the Green Lake County Sheriff’s Office at 920-294-4134 ext 1162.

“If there’s someone out there, please, do it for the family,” Podoll said.

Federal and state agencies are now involved in the search for Borgwardt.

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[Featured image: Ryan Borgwardt/Green Lake County Sheriff’s Office]