Police: Kidnapped Infant Taken as Retribution (Illegal Alien smugglers)

ABC News ^ | 11 DEC 2006 | LAURA MARQUEZ

[radar101]

- Police believe a month-old baby boy kidnapped in Fort Myers, Fla., was abducted as retribution for money his parents owed to a human smuggling ring.

Fort Myers Police Chief Hilton Daniels said the parents of Bryan Dos Santos Gomes were brought into the United States illegally from Brazil, "but failed to pay the smugglers' entire fee."

On Dec. 1, Maria Fatima Ramos Dos Santos was walking with her baby and another woman and child when they were approached by a woman driving a black sports utility vehicle. The driver asked the women for directions, and they agreed to get into the SUV to show her the way.

Police say the driver then forced the other mother and child out of the car and escaped with Ramos and her baby. Ramos was released outside Fort Myers uninjured, but the kidnapper kept the baby.

At first, police believed it was a case of a woman who wanted a baby and was acting alone.

After various law enforcement agencies and missing children groups offered a reward of $21,000, police said information in the last 24 hours pointed to a human smuggling ring.

"We are still looking for the woman [the female driver]," police spokeswoman Shelly Flynn said. "But it is not a woman who desperately needed a baby. Now, we are looking for a group of people."

Fort Myers police say human smuggling is all too common, but Fort Myers police spokeswoman Amy Cureton said she was not aware of any other case where a child was taken as reprisal, and "it hopefully will never happen again."

Cureton said police believe there are more people in the area who have been smuggled into the country illegally, and they're asking them to come forward to give any information about the smugglers.

"We are not interested in arresting them," said Cureton, adding that they can call in anonymously without leaving their name or number. "We just want to find that baby."

Cureton said the longer a baby is missing, the harder it to locate because the kidnappers can travel a further distance.

Officers from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement are assisting the Ft. Myers Police Department.

"Smugglers have no regard for human life," spokeswoman Barbara Gonzalez said, "which is why we strongly discourage human smuggling -- not just because it is illegal, but people are putting their lives at risk."

Kim Petersen, executive director of the Carole Sund/Carrington Foundation, which put up $5,000 of the reward money, was shocked today to hear the baby may have been taken as retribution.

"How horrible!" she exclaimed.

But Petersen remains confident baby Bryan is still alive.

"He is the incentive," she said, "to pay their debt to get him back. If they were to injure him, that wouldn't happen."

The parents of the kidnapped baby have said publicly through a local church that is helping them that they don't believe the smuggling ring theory. The mother, Dos Santos, acknowledged to the Fort Myers News Press that she and her husband, Jurandir Gomes Costa do owe "a few hundred dollars" to "coyotes," as she referred to the professional human smugglers, who took them from Brazil through Mexico into the United States.

A family friend told the News Press the parents are afraid to say much to the media about the human smuggling ring because they fear for their family still living in Brazil.

Saturday night, the case of "Baby Bryan" was featured on the television show "America's Most Wanted," although the story still focused on the angle of the lone kidnapper. Dos Santos told the crime solving show the kidnapper warned her, "I have killed before; I will kill again."

Even though police now are searching for a network of people, they still believe their best chance of finding them, and in turn, the infant, is to hunt for the female kidnapper. Police spokeswoman Cureton said, "She's our tie to the ring."

She's described as 28 to 30 years old, about five feet four inches, with dark hair pulled into a bun.

The reward for $21,000 still stands for any information that results in the safe return of baby Bryan.

Anyone with information is asked to call the toll-free tip line at 877-667-1296.

[wolfcreek]

I hope ICE grants these poor individuals Full Amnesty for their trouble. It's the least We can do!

[100-Fold_Return]

dims will be in power in just a few days and illegal alien "problem" [disaster] will just vanish--poof.>p?Like the "housing bubble" exploding at any second sending millions of Americans onto cold, dark streets.

[caseinpoint]

Find the baby. Put the kidnapper and coyotes in jail. Reunite the family and then send them home to Brazil.

[bert]

.......Find the baby. Put the kidnapper and coyotes in jail. Reunite the family and then send them home to Brazil......

Worth repeating.......

Based on the evidence on screen, it would seem we've already failed the class.

[caseinpoint]

"Based on the evidence on screen, it would seem we've already "

Agreed. We are supposed to forget why this baby was kidnapped in order to do what's best for the children. Yet it appears that had we enforced our laws properly in the first place, that baby would still be in its mother's arms.

There's a clever poem called (I think) "The Ambulance at the Bottom of the Hill" about a society which was proud of its ambulance service, especially since it would so quickly pick up the citizens who fell off the local cliff. Finally a wise man asked the people, why not put a fence at the top of the cliff and stop people from falling off in the first place? Too much of our society is run with ambulances at the bottom of the hill and citizens feeling virtuous because they financed the ambulance.

[tom h]

"Find the baby. Put the kidnapper and coyotes in jail. Reunite the family and then send them home to Brazil."

Nah. Standard practice is to provide the grieving mother a visa to stay while the case is underway. I'm serious. It happens in Southern Cal whenever a car or van carrying illegals is involved in an accident. Those uninjured get visas so they can testify at the upcoming trial.

Sheesh.

[Mad Dawg]

Finally a wise man asked the people, why not put a fence at the top of the cliff and stop people from falling off in the first place?

That is just SEW heartless and, uh, mean-spirited, yeah, mean-spirited!

What about the poor ambulance drivers? Hah? You don't think of those good, hard-working people who would be unemployed. And the people who wash and maintain the ambulance? And the people who design the forms to keep track of maintenance, and the people who fill them out, and the other people who say they weren't filled out properly and send them back to be filled out again?

And you want restrict the freedom of the individual to walk near the edge of the cliff! Have you no compassion? Keep your laws of their body!

< sniff >

< giggle >

---

[caseinpoint]

LOL. Can I retrain them to maintain fences? Would that save my compassion?