LOS ANGELES, Dec 3, (AP): A Hawaii woman who vanished after landing in Los Angeles three weeks ago disappeared voluntarily as she sought to "step away from modern connectivity” and was last seen crossing into Mexico with her luggage, police said at a news conference where they urged her to contact her distraught family.

Hannah Kobayashi, 30, appeared unharmed as she walked alone into a tunnel at the San Ysidro crossing about 125 miles (201 kilometers) southwest of Los Angeles around noon on Nov 12, the day after her family reported her missing, LA police said Monday. Authorities made the discovery after reviewing surveillance video from the US Customs and Border Protection late Sunday.

Los Angeles Police Chief Jim McDonnell said there is no evidence Kobayashi was being trafficked or was otherwise a victim of a crime. Her disappearance is now classified as a "voluntary missing person.” "We’ve basically done everything we can do at this point. She’s left the country and in another nation now,” he said, adding that if she returns to the US, law enforcement will be notified.

McDonnell said she has a right to her privacy, but urged her to reach out to her family or law enforcement. "A simple message could reassure those who care about her,” McDonnell said. He explained that the missing person case will remain active until her safety is confirmed by law enforcement. Kobayashi went missing after the budding photographer from Maui didn’t make a connecting flight to New York on Nov 8 to travel for a new job and to visit relatives.

She told her family she would sleep in the Los Angeles International Airport that night. Family members assumed she was on standby for another flight, according to her aunt, Larie Pidgeon. The next day, Kobayashi texted them to say she was sightseeing in Los Angeles, planning to visit The Grove shopping mall and downtown LA, Pidgeon said.

On Nov 11, the family received "strange and cryptic, just alarming” text messages from her phone that referenced her being "intercepted” as she got on a Metro train and being scared that someone might be stealing her identity, her aunt said. Her father, Ryan Kobayashi, who had been in the search party along with volunteers, was found dead by apparent suicide on Sunday, Nov 24, in a parking lot near LA International Airport, police and her family said.