5 Arrests in U.S. and Mexico Halt a Ring Smuggling Children

Published: January 31, 2002

The federal police said today that they had discovered a group smuggling children from Central America to the United States, as authorities freed a dozen children and said many more might already have been smuggled.

Police officials announced that they had rescued six Salvadoran infants from ''deplorable conditions'' at a house in Naucalpan, a suburb of Mexico City, and had arrested three people. Two other suspects were detained in Los Angeles, and authorities took six children found with them into protective custody there, Mexican authorities said.

''We wouldn't rule out the possibility that there are many more cases,'' said a police spokesman, Valentín Pérez. ''I believe a significant number of children may have already been sent to the United States.''

Mr. Pérez said it was unclear what the intended fate of the children was, saying the police were investigating the possibility that they had been destined for adoption-for-money, child prostitution or organ trafficking.

Nicolás Suárez Valenzuela, the coordinator of federal police intelligence, said at a news conference that officials had uncovered the ring on Monday after growing suspicious of two women accompanying six children ages 9 to 11 at Tijuana International Airport near the United States border.

The women turned the children over to someone else, then immediately booked a return flight to Mexico City.

Under questioning, he said, 27-year-old Estela Barajas González admitted that her husband, Abel Bartolo Alanis, had received the children in Mexico City from a Guatemalan woman known as ''the traveler'' and that they were being sent with another person to Los Angeles. Ms. Barajas and her aunt were taken into custody on suspicion of organized crime and kidnapping.

Officers who went to Mr. Bartolo's house in Naucalpan found six infants there and also arrested him. The infants were turned over to a child protection agency in Mexico City.

Mr. Suárez said records showed that Ms. Barajas had been arrested in 1998 and accused of child stealing, but that the charges had been dropped.

In a statement, the police agency said Ms. Barajas also bore a ''surprising resemblance'' to a composite image, based on witness descriptions, of a woman accused of stealing a child in Mexico.

Mr. Suárez said the F.B.I. and Salvadoran officials had helped break the ring.