INTERPOL HUNTS BABY-SMUGGLING SUSPECT
The Miami Herald
Author: ASHLEY FANTZ, afantz@herald.com
On Monday, the Costa Rican government issued an international arrest order for an employee of a South Florida adoption agency, alleging he smuggled children bound for adoptive homes in America.
The arrest order, which has been given to international police agency Interpol, also states that Rolf Salomón Levy Berger, an employee at the Coral Spring's agency International Adoption Resource, is wanted by the Colombian government for his involvement in ``similar activities.''
According to the order, Berger is wanted for ``kidnapping and trafficking in children as well as homicide for lack of medical attention of one of the children that he offered for sale'' in Colombia.
On Friday, the Florida Department of Children & Families suspended Coral Springs-based IAR's license after state child welfare workers said that agency lied about its connections with an alleged child smuggler. IAR has 30 days to appeal the suspension to DCF.
Although it's unclear how many current clients the 3-year-old agency has, about a dozen of them posted questions on an Internet chat room at www.adoptionforum.com since Friday when the agency was shut down. Many want to know if their adoptions, for which they've already paid hundreds of dollars, could now be in jeopardy.
The state will not comment about possible recourses for the adopting couples, said Leslie Mann, a spokesperson for DCF. Any client of IAR or anyone with information about the agency is being asked to call DCF's legal office at 954-467-4551.
A Midwestern husband and wife, who did not want to be identified by name, said they have given Rebecca Thurmond, the director of IAR, more than $10,000 over the past 10 months to adopt a baby girl from Guatemala. They have not received the baby.
Both say that Thurmond has taken weeks to answer some of their questions and they are generally unhappy with the way IAR has treated them. On Friday, the husband, who is in his early 40s, called Thurmond and left a message for her asking what was happening. The couple did not hear back. Later that evening, the wife e-mailed Thurmond about a required police background check the couple had successfully passed.
``She e-mailed me back about the check but didn't mention anything about the license [being stripped],'' said the wife. ``We asked her what was going on and we wanted to know. The fact that she didn't say anything about it - that was just very odd.''
On Monday, Moss released another statement saying that because IAR dealt exclusively with international adoptions, numerous federal and international agencies are involved in the investigation, including immigration officials.
``I would ask all those involved to give us the time required to gather the facts before passing judgment,'' he wrote.
DCF and Costa Rican officials had independently investigated IAR since September for its involvement in a smuggling ring involving nine Guatemalan babies who were discovered that month living in a run-down house. The house, investigators believe, was a transit point for the children who were then going to be sent to America.
The babies were connected to IAR through paperwork found in the house with the signature of attorney Carlos Robles. He was jailed in September by Costa Rican authorities - along with two Hondurans, four Guatemalans, and a Swiss national - and charged with child smuggling.
A former bank executive, Robles was convicted in 2001 of embezzlement after Banco Anglo Costarricense lost millions from purchasing questionable bonds, a highly publicized scandal in the country.
Since September, The Herald has tried to reach Thurmond at her IAR office and at home. On Monday, she did not return phone calls and was not at her Southwest Ranches house.