A Texas woman has confessed to drugging young girls with melatonin gummies while trafficking them into the US — just as border agents are warning that kids are being smuggled through similar means all across the southern border.
Vanessa Valadez, 23, of Laredo, pleaded guilty Friday to working with family members to smuggle children under the age of 5 into the country from Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, between August and September 2023.
“La noquiamos con unas gomitas,” one of Valdez’s co-conspirators wrote in a message alongside an image of a passed out girl during one operation — which translates to “we knocked her out with some gummies.”
US Border Patrol agents say they’re seeing an uptick in kids being trafficked across the border without their families. AFP via Getty Images
Valdez and her family smuggled at least four young girls into the country, according to Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), picking them up from a stash house across the border and drugging them before using phony birth certificates to try to pass them off as family members.
After Laredo, the girls were taken deeper into the US and left with unknown people for unknown purposes.
Valdez and her conspirators were finally foiled on Sept. 21, 2023, during a routine inspection by border agents.
Three of the girls smuggled into the US remain unidentified, and their locations are unknown, HSI said in a statement.
Fake birth certificates have been used to disguise kids as family members of smugglers X / @USBPChiefELC
Valdez’s co-conspirators were Ana Laura Bryand, 47; and her niece Kayla Marie Bryand, 20; Jose Eduardo Bryand, 43; Nancy Guadalupe Bryand, 44; and 32-year-old Lizeth Esmeralda Bryand Arredondo, of Mexico. Each previously pleaded guilty to their parts in the sick conspiracy.
The shocking confessions come as US border agents are warning that child-trafficking is on the rise along the border — and that nobody knows the full scope of the problem.
Border Patrol sources previously told The Post they’ve seen an uptick in smugglers using kids to pose as family units — and sometimes see kids turn up at the border multiple times but with different adults each time.
It remains unclear what is being done with the trafficked kids — but official fear they are susceptible to sex exploitation James Keivom
“A few years ago when they were coming in en masse, we had to let family units in. People kept coming in and after a while we noticed the kids were the same, but the parents were different. They were recycling the kids,” one source said.
“I hate thinking about it because there were thousands of kids and who knows where they all ended up.”
It remains unclear exactly what fates could befall the kids, but officials fear they are vulnerable to child labor and sex exploitation.
Like the case involving Valdez, smugglers have been caught drugging kids with sleep aids and using of fake birth certificates to fabricate their identities.
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Publish date : 2024-09-24 14:30:00
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