HomeNewsAnalysisMexico Adoption Case Points to Child Trafficking Industry
ANALYSIS

Mexico Adoption Case Points to Child Trafficking Industry

GUATEMALA / 15 JAN 2012 BY ELYSSA PACHICO EN

The arrest of six women in Mexico over an alleged child trafficking ring is a reminder of the potential for organized criminal groups to get involved in the adoption business across the region.

The Associated Press reports that six women in Jalisco state, Mexico, have been arrested in connection to a smuggling ring which planned to deliver babies to Irish couples. Authorities took at least 10 children into custody.

It is unclear from the initial investigation whether the children held by the smuggling ring were abducted without their parents' knowledge. A local law firm, Lopez Lopez y Asociados, was reportedly handling the fraudulent adoptions. One of the detained women said that she was paid $500 to allow the law firm to take custody of her baby for two weeks for an advertising campaign.

Corruption within the adoption industry is not a new problem in Mexico or Central America. Smugglers take advantage of the demand in countries like the US, where 11,000 international adoptions were processed in 2010 and 9,320 in 2011. Central America is a particularly attractive region for US adoptions because it is geographically close and because cases tend to be processed faster than in China or Russia, which also have large adoption industries. Growing demand in Europe also helped the industry expand on a global scale, with about 40,000 children from developing countries adopted by foreigners in 2006, up from 22,200 in 2005, according to a report by Brandeis University.

The industry is most deeply entrenched in Guatemala. At one point, one in every 100 Guatemalan children were adopted by US families. But there were so many cases of fraud that the two countries halted the practice in 2007. Since then, the US has eased regulations regarding pending cases. According to journalist Erin Siegal, who has covered the issue extensively, there are some 300 adoption cases from Guatemala that are still in limbo.

Other countries in the region, including Brazil, Peru and Honduras, have at one time halted US adoptions due to concerns over child smuggling. But this tightening of has created something like a "bubble" effect: as adoption regulations become stricter in one region, the industry shifts to another country with more lax laws.

As the incident in Mexico illustrates, law firms are frequently involved in engineering these fraudulent adoptions. As Siegel points out, in the case of Guatemala, lawyers and other wealthy, upper class individuals are typically involved in adoption fraud, which has given significant political clout to adoption lobbying groups. In turn, this has made it difficult to pass stricter regulations for adoption procedures in the country.

share icon icon icon

Was this content helpful?

We want to sustain Latin America’s largest organized crime database, but in order to do so, we need resources.

DONATE

What are your thoughts? Click here to send InSight Crime your comments.

We encourage readers to copy and distribute our work for non-commercial purposes, with attribution to InSight Crime in the byline and links to the original at both the top and bottom of the article. Check the Creative Commons website for more details of how to share our work, and please send us an email if you use an article.

Was this content helpful?

We want to sustain Latin America’s largest organized crime database, but in order to do so, we need resources.

DONATE

Related Content

FEATURED / 27 APR 2021

Long considered a backwater, low-class drug, methamphetamine availability and use has exploded in the United States in the last few…

COVID AND CRIME / 19 AUG 2021

The number of human trafficking victims in Mexico is growing, as traffickers target vulnerable people hit hard by the COVID-19…

EXTRADITION / 8 AUG 2022

A US request has led Guatemala to dismantle a prolific human smuggling ring that smuggled migrants to the United States.

About InSight Crime

THE ORGANIZATION

Venezuela Coverage Continues to be Highlighted

3 MAR 2023

This week, InSight Crime co-director Jeremy McDermott was the featured guest on the Americas Quarterly podcast, where he provided an expert overview of the changing dynamics…

THE ORGANIZATION

Venezuela's Organized Crime Top 10 Attracts Attention

24 FEB 2023

Last week, InSight Crime published its ranking of Venezuela’s ten organized crime groups to accompany the launch of the Venezuela Organized Crime Observatory. Read…

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime on El País Podcast

10 FEB 2023

This week, InSight Crime co-founder, Jeremy McDermott, was among experts featured in an El País podcast on the progress of Colombia’s nascent peace process.

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime Interviewed by Associated Press

3 FEB 2023

This week, InSight Crime’s Co-director Jeremy McDermott was interviewed by the Associated Press on developments in Haiti as the country continues its prolonged collapse. McDermott’s words were republished around the world,…

THE ORGANIZATION

Escaping Barrio 18

27 JAN 2023

Last week, InSight Crime published an investigation charting the story of Desafío, a 28-year-old Barrio 18 gang member who is desperate to escape gang life. But there’s one problem: he’s…