Mexican authorities dismantle child trafficking network in Chiapas

The search for a 2 1/2 year-old boy named Dylan, who was led away from his mother in a market in Chiapas three weeks ago, led the Mexican police to a horrifying discovery: 23 abducted children being kept at a house and forced to sell trinkets in the street.

Prosecutors in Chiapas said on July 21 that most of the children were between two and 15 years old, but three babies aged between 3 and 20 months were also found during a raid on July 20 at the house in San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas.

San Cristobal is a picturesque, heavily Indigenous city that is popular among national and international tourists. It is common to see children and adults selling crafts like carvings and embroidered cloth on its narrow cobblestone streets.

But few visitors to the city suspected that some of the kids doing the selling had been snatched from their families and kept in deplorable conditions.

The Chiapas state prosecutors’ office said in a statement that the children “were forced through physical and psychological violence to sell handicrafts in the center of the city,” adding the kids showed signs of “malnutrition and precarious conditions.”

“According to the children, many of them were forced to go out on the streets to sell things, and moreover they were forced to return with a certain minimum amount of money for the right to get food and a place to sleep at the house,” said state prosecutor Jorge Llaven.

According to video presented by the prosecutors, many of the children slept on what appeared to be sheets of cardboard and blankets on a cement floor.

So far, authorities have detained three women who may face human trafficking and forced labor charges.

The children were handed over to child welfare authorities. Authorities showed a photo of some of the children, their faces blurred, having lunch after their rescue.

The search was set off by the June 30 kidnapping of 2 1/2-year-old Dylan Esaú Gómez Pérez, when he was with his mother at a public market in San Cristobal.

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A surveillance camera from a nearby shop showed that a young girl who appeared to be about 13 had grabbed the little boy by the hand and led him away, raising the possibility that some of the children were used to abduct other kids.

After the disappearance of the boy, who reportedly speaks the Indigenous language Tzotzil , his mother and relatives began a desperate campaign to locate him.

But the Chiapas state prosecutors office did not immediately confirm whether Dylan, who will turn 3 in November, was among the children rescued from forced labor this week.

Interviewed Tuesday outside the National Palace in Mexico City, his mother, Juana Pérez, said officials told her that her son had not yet been found.

“None of the children (rescued) is my son,” Pérez said, sobbing. “I haven’t heard anything about my son.”

Pérez, who traveled to Mexico City to ask President Andrés Manuel López Obrador to help find her son, works at the market selling fruit and vegetables. She said her son would sometimes wander off to play, but that no children had ever been snatched from the market before.

The boy’s father emigrated to California to find work, and thus Pérez, 23, has had to raise Dylan and his sister by herself.

She described him as a chubby, happy boy who market vendors nicknamed “Gordito,” and tearfully appealed for help in finding him.

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President López Obrador said he has more information regarding the disappearance of the little boy. He added that his team is in touch with Chiapas governor Rutilio Escandón and that the local prosecutor’s office is working on an investigation.

The Chiapas state Attorney General’s Office offered an MXN 300,000 reward for information about Dylan’s location. It offered another MXN 300,000 reward for information regarding a woman named “Ofelia,” who is involved in the disappearance of the little boy.

After reviewing surveillance cameras, state prosecutor Jorge Llaven said that a boy and a girl, both apparently around 12, were seen talking to a woman who is a suspect in the June 30 abduction.

In photos from cameras, the boy and the girl enter the public market where Dylan’s mother worked. Dylan appears to follow the boy, and then the girl takes Dylan by the back of the jacket and walks out of the market with him. The girl is later seen returning alone, apparently having handed the missing boy over to someone else.

Chiapas authorities announced that the three women arrested on Monday were sent to a prison located in Cintalapa de Figueroa. They could face up to 30 years in prison.

Dylan Esaú Gómez Pérez

Little Dylan Esaú went missing on June 30, while he was playing at the market where his mother works. When he headed towards his grandmother’s stall in the market, the little boy went missing.

His mother, with the help of other vendors, started searching for him immediately. Police officers joined the search an hour later.

She filed a police report that same day but the little boy is still missing 22 days after the kidnapping .

Dylan’s mother met with officials from the Citizen Service department under the President’s office on July 21. The government department directed Juana Pérez to the National Search Commission and the Attorney General’s Office.

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