Tourist Kenneth Rodman, reported missing five years ago in Queensland, found in Cairns 
 
 Updated 
 
 A man from the United States who went missing while holidaying in Queensland five years ago has been found alive. 
 
 In December 2010, Kenneth Rodman, then 55 years of age, was reported missing while visiting Australia on a tourist visa. 
 
 He was last sighted by a friend near Port Douglas and was believed to be heading to the beach near Mossman with his green kayak. 
 
 The kayak was later recovered from Wangetti Beach in January 2011. 
 
 Friends, family and police have been unable to make contact with him since 2010. 
 
 On Saturday, officers investigating a matter in the Smithfield area stumbled across the now 60-year-old man, who confessed to police that he had been listed as a missing person. 
 
 He has been featured regularly in police missing person's articles since 2010. 
 
 "Police would like to thank members of the public who have contacted Crime Stoppers over the past five years with information and reported sightings of him," a Queensland Police Service statement read. 
 
 The Department of Immigration and Border Protection has detained the man ahead of his removal from Australia. 
 
 Topics: community-and-society, missing-person, cairns-4870 
 
 First posted 

 Queensland police have chanced upon a US man who appears to have tried to fake his own disappearance in the state’s tropical north more than four years ago. 
 
 Kenneth Rodman was 55 and travelling on a tourist visa when he was reported missing in December 2010, having last been seen by a friend on the way to a beach in Mowbray, near Mossman. 
 
 Rodman’s green kayak, with which he had travelled around Australia, was recovered from Wangetti beach the following month and family in the US had no contact from him since. 
 
 It is understood Rodman came to the attention of officers investigating an unrelated crime north of Cairns on Saturday night, mistakenly believing they had come for him. 
 
 Rodman allegedly confessed to police he had been listed as a missing person, having been featured regularly in missing person reports since his 2010 disappearance. 
 
 He was detained by the Department of Immigration and Border Protection ahead of his deportation from the country, police said in a statement. 
 
 Police, who suspected Rodman was living in far north Queensland, thanked the public for reporting sightings of the US citizen since 2010.
– American Kenneth Rodman was 55 when he vanished in Australia in 2010 while traveling the country on a tourist visa. He was reported missing by a friend who'd last seen him on Dec. 21 near Port Douglas, heading for a beach with his green kayak. He was later spotted on Christmas Day "heading in an unknown direction," according to a missing person report, but family and friends said they hadn't heard from him since. Though his kayak was found abandoned a month later, police had a suspicion that Rodman was living in Queensland's far north. In a lucky break, they found him unintentionally on Saturday, the Guardian reports. While investigating an unrelated crime near Cairns, officers came across the 60-year-old, who confessed that he was a missing person, apparently believing he was already busted for faking his disappearance, police say. Rodman, who had been mentioned regularly in missing person reports since his disappearance, was detained by immigration and border protection officials and is expected to be deported. "Police would like to thank members of the public who have contacted Crime Stoppers over the past five years with information and reported sightings of him," a Queensland Police Service statement says, per ABC News Australia.