AFP- A GIRL abducted by her mother 12 years ago has been found safe and well in Mexico after a joint US-Mexican rescue operation.
Sabrina Allen went missing in 2002 at the age of four, and was rescued on Tuesday in the town of Estafeta Tlaxcala, about 140km east of Mexico City. She is now 17-years-old.
“I am overjoyed that Sabrina has been found alive and is safe,” said her father Greg Allen in a statement released by private eye firm Klein Investigations and Consulting, who helped track his daughter down.
“Our entire family would like to thank the investigators that made this happen.”
Allen had been given sole custody of his daughter when he divorced his wife Dara Marie Llorens in 2000. But she “knowingly abducted” the child during an unsupervised weekend visit in April 2002, according to an affidavit.
Allen said Llorens also had plastic surgery to escape detection, and mother and child used fake names in Mexico.
Sabrina and her mother were returned to the US overnight, however it is not clear if the teen was reunited with her father.
In an emotional message in a GoFundMe page, used to raise money for Sabrina’s search, Allen said his daughter’s education was several years behind.
“She was effectively a prisoner in a two-bedroom apartment,” he said.
He added that his ex-wife told their daughter that he and her paternal grandparents were dead.
“She’s in pretty bad shape,” Allen said. “Sabrina has been under a pretty intense campaign to hate me for 10 years.”
Llorens is in police custody and has been charged with aggravated kidnapping. She is being held on $300,000 bond.
