FBI Hunting for Mexican Infant Believed Abducted

The FBI is searching for a newborn Mexican infant they believe was kidnapped from her Mixtec Indian mother in Tijuana and taken to California, a spokesman said Monday.

Victorina Ramirez Salazar, 20, told FBI agents that on Aug. 4 she entrusted her 20-day-old daughter to a woman who, with a male accomplice, promised to drive the infant to the United States and return a few hours later to help the rest of the family illegally cross the border, according to Jan Caldwell, the FBI spokeswoman in San Diego.

When a day passed with no word from the woman, Ramirez asked U.S. immigration agents for help, Caldwell said. The Orange County phone number the woman left Ramirez turned out to be phony, she said.

“We have every reason to believe the child was abducted,” Caldwell said.

There are concerns for the health of the infant, who cannot tolerate baby formula and must be breast-fed, Caldwell said. The FBI is asking hospitals to be on the lookout for an infant girl who may be weak or dehydrated, she said.

Bob Jordan, the FBI supervisor in charge of the bank robbery and kidnapping squad, said the agency previously had heard reports about a woman spotted in Tijuana looking for babies.

“That would lead me to believe that this woman is down in Tijuana trolling around, looking for victims and kids,” Jordan said. “They’re familiar faces down there. I think we have a reasonable chance of getting this kid back, if we dig deep enough and fast enough.”

U.S. and Mexican federal agents say they get a handful of cross-border child abduction cases each year. Some are the work of professional traffickers in stolen youngsters. In other cases, smugglers hold the children until the parents can pay off outstanding smuggling fees, they say.

“The cases we see are probably just the tip of the iceberg,” Caldwell said.

FBI agent Bob Jordan said Ramirez, who is still in Tijuana with her family, is “very distraught.”

Ramirez told investigators she had traveled to Tijuana from impoverished Oaxaca province with her father, godmother and 4-year-old brother late in her pregnancy, hoping to enter the United States illegally so she could give birth there, Caldwell said. The Ramirezes are Mixtec Indians who speak very little Spanish, Caldwell said.

Ramirez was befriended by the woman while she was still pregnant and working at a jewelry stand she had set up on Avenida Revolucion in Tijuana, according to Mexican judicial police. The woman told Ramirez she would help smuggle the family to California and find them jobs, and even give them a little cash to get started, Mexican police said.

The child was born July 16 at General Hospital in Tijuana, FBI investigators say.

On Aug. 4, the woman showed up with a male companion, they said. She introduced the Ramirez family to two smugglers who were to walk them across the border and took the smuggling fee, they said.

The couple drove off with the baby in a white Chevrolet Aerostar or Astro van with blue California license plates, promising to return shortly for Ramirez’s 4-year-old brother, according to the FBI.

FBI agents believe the couple brought the infant into the United States and may have headed to Orange County, but “they could be anywhere,” Caldwell said. “We’re grasping for straws,” she said. “I hope somebody out there sees that baby.”

Anyone with information can call the Los Angeles FBI at (310) 477-6565 or the San Diego FBI at (619) 565-1255.