FBI, Arizona Police Alerted in Kidnaping : Search: Mother of 6-year-old fails to turn up in Mesa. Cypress grandmother had reared boy from infancy.

Daniel James Lans, the 6-year-old Cypress boy abducted this week by two men, may be in Arizona with his mother, said Cypress police, who have alerted the FBI and Arizona authorities.

“We’ve got some third-party information that he is in the custody of the mother,” Cypress Police Lt. Phillip Satterfield said. “We’re trying to verify that information. From what we’ve been able to gather, she has not been at her residence in Arizona.”

Police suspect that the information they received Tuesday, a day after Daniel was grabbed from his grandmother and forced into a car, could be valid because police in Arizona have not been able to find the boy’s mother, Nancy Espinoza of Mesa.

“From what we’ve been able to gather,” Satterfield said, “she’s not at the residence. We don’t know where she is.”

Daniel was in front of his home about at 8:15 a.m. Monday with his grandmother, Janet Lans, who has reared Daniel since he was 3 weeks old and has legal custody.

A man grabbed the child and forced him into a car, which was driven by another man. The grandmother tried to stop the men, hung onto the car and was dragged a short distance.

Police investigators are looking for a blue, four-door Hyundai and want to question the boy’s mother.

After the abduction, the boy’s family in California--including an uncle, John Landolfi, 32--told police that they suspect that the attack is related to a custody dispute between Daniel’s mother and the family in Cypress.

David A. Wagner, an county deputy district attorney with his office’s child abduction unit, said when custody disputes lead to kidnapings, a wide variety of criminal charges can be filed against the abductors if they are caught.

“We have one of the most progressive systems in the nation for recovering children to their parents or legal guardians,” Wagner said.

One of the more serious charges, felony kidnaping, carries a maximum four-year prison sentence, said Wagner, who declined to discuss the Cypress case specifically.

What makes the abduction of greater concern to law enforcement and family members is that the boy is under treatment for serious asthma and requires frequent medication.

“The child is the ultimate victim of all this, and until the kid’s home and safe I wouldn’t assume anything,” Wagner said, declining to speculate on possible charges in the case. “The welfare of the child has to be paramount.”