The FBI announced on March 8 that an eight-year-old girl who went missing in 2018 had been found in Mexico.
Aranza Maria Ochoa Lopez was abducted at the age of four by her biological mother from Vancouver, Washington, in the United States.
“The FBI and our partners did not give up on Aranza for more than four years,” said Richard A. Collodi, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Seattle field office.
Aranza has now been returned to the United States, and the FBI will continue to assist her as she adjusts to life in America.
“Our priority now will be to support Aranza as she begins her reintegration into the United States,” Collodi added.
According to the Columbian, Lopez’s mother, Esmeralda Lopez-Lopez, asked to take her child to the bathroom during the visit.
Lopez-Lopez then fled the scene with her daughter in a stolen vehicle with an accomplice.
Aranza had been placed in foster care following allegations that her mother had abused her.
Following the incident, Lopez-Lopez was arrested in September 2019 in Puebla, Mexico, and pleaded guilty to second-degree kidnapping and robbery and first-degree custodial interference in 2021, earning her a 20-month prison sentence.
But Aranza was never found during the entire ordeal.
When she was apprehended, the FBI determined she had been taken to Mexico and offered a $10,000 (£8,37k) reward for information leading to the little girl’s recovery.
Mexican authorities safely recovered her in February 2023 in Michoacán, a state in western Mexico. Lopez was found and returned to the United States by FBI special agents.
Officials have yet to reveal more information about her discovery, such as how she was tracked down and who the child was with when she was discovered.
