An eight-year-old girl who went missing in 2018 has been found in Mexico, the FBI announced Wednesday (March 8).
Aranza Maria Ochoa Lopez was abducted by her biological mother at the age of 4 in Vancouver, Washington. “Over the past four years, the FBI and our partners have not abandoned Aranza,” said Richard A. Collodi, special agent in charge of the FBI's field office in Seattle. Aranza has now been returned to the United States and the FBI will continue to support the child as she settles back into life in the US.“Our concern now is to support Aranza as she begins to reintegrate into the United States,” Collodi added.
Aranza had a supervised visit with her biological mother on October 25, 2018, the day she was taken out of a shopping center in Vancouver, Washington.
During the visit, Lopez's mother, Esmeralda Lopez-Lopez, asked to take her baby to the bathroom, according to local publication The Columbian.
Lopez-Lopez then fled with her daughter and left the scene in a stolen vehicle with an accomplice.
Aranza was placed in foster care after it was reported that her mother had abused her.
Lopez-Lopez was arrested in September 2019 in Puebla, Mexico, following the incident and pleaded guilty to second-degree kidnapping and robbery as well as interference in first-degree custody in 2021, prompting him to plead guilty. sentence of 20 months in prison.
But during the ordeal, Aranza was never found.
When the girl was arrested, the FBI determined that she had been taken to Mexico and offered a $10,000 (£8,37,000) reward for information leading to her recovery.
She was safely recovered by Mexican authorities in February 2023 in Michoacán, a state in western Mexico. FBI agents brought Lopez back to the United States after being discovered.
Authorities have yet to release further details about her find, including how she was found and who the child was with when she was found.
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