An eight-year-old girl who had been kidnapped since 2018 has been found alive and well in Mexico and returned to the US, the FBI said on Wednesday, March 8.
Aranza Maria Ochoa Lopez was kidnapped at age four by her biological mother from Vancouver, in the US state of Washington prompting a manhunt from the authorities.
‘For more than four years, the FBI and our partners did not give up on Aranza,’ Richard A. Collodi, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Seattle field office said.
Aranza has now been returned to the States and the FBI will continue to support the child as she settles back into American life.
‘Our concern now will be supporting Aranza as she begins her reintegration into the US,’ Collodi added.
Officials have yet to reveal further details on her discovery, including how she was tracked down and who the child was with when she was found.
Aranza had a supervised visit with her biological mother on October 25, 2018, the day she was taken from a shopping mall in Vancouver, Washington.
During the visit, Lopez’s mother, Esmeralda Lopez-Lopez, asked to take her child to the toilet, 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 had been in foster care following reports that her mum 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 and first-degree custodial interference in 2021, landing her a 20-month prison sentence.
But throughout the entire ordeal, Aranza was never found. When she was taken the FBI determined she had been taken to Mexico and offered a $10k (£8.37k) reward for information leading to the recovery of the little girl.
She was safely recovered by Mexican authorities in February 2023 in Michoacán, a state in western Mexico. FBI special agents took Lopez back to the US after she was found.
They worked with the Vancouver Police in Washington and law enforcement in Mexico on the investigation.
The majority of abducted children are taken by family members, according to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
