A Chinese couple found kidnapped son after 32 years. The child was two-year-old when abducted outside a hotel in 1988 Xi’an in central Shaanxi province.
Father lost Mao Yin when he stopped to get him water on the way home from nursery. A childless couple bought the boy in neighboring Sichuan province. Mao Yin met his biological parents through facial recognition technology. Police used the technology to track him.
This Chinese couple are reunited with their missing son after a 32-year search. Mao Yin was just two-years-old when he was abducted outside a hotel in 1988.
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Xi’an’s public security bureau said the childless couple raised Mao Yin as their child. The family reunited at a police news conference on Monday. Mao Yin, now 34, says he aims to live with his biological parents. The Chinese couple expressed delight as they found kidnapped son after three decades.
The couple searching for the son
Mao Yin was born on February 23, 1986. On 17th October 1988, Mao Yin was returning home with his father Mao Zhenjiang from the nursery. The boy asked for water so they stopped at the entrance of the hotel. Meanwhile, father cooled down hot water, the boy was abducted. Her mother recalled him a ‘healthy, very cute, and clever boy’ in the latest interview in January earlier.
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Mother of Mao Yin quit her job soon after his abduction. She distributed 100,000 flyers in 10 provinces and states. While the couple searched for him across the country. The couple even put up posters in and around Xian. At one point they thought they had found their son but it turned out false hope.
Meeting her son after 32 years, the overwhelmed mother expressed her happiness. She extended her gratitude to the people who helped them find their son. “I would like to thank the tens of thousands of people who helped us,” said Li Jingzhi, the boy’s mother.
However, Li Jingzhi did not lose hope over the years as she continued her desperate search for a son. In 2007, she joined an organization, Baby Come Back Home-that helped families find their missing children. Li Jingzhi reunited 29 children with their families as she volunteered for the organization.
She even followed 300 leads in the past three decades to find her son.
How Police found Mao Yin?
Police ‘aged’ one of Mao’s childhood photos and used the results to match the national database and find close matches. However, in April, the Police received a tip about a man who had bought a child from Sichuan Province in the late 1980s.
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Police tracked down Mao Yin and confirmed he was the lost son of the couple through a DNA test. However, the adoptive parents had renamed Mao Yin as Gu Ningning. The boy did not know about his abduction and his biological parents. He runs a home decoration business in Sichuan.
Heartwarming scenes witnessed at the police news conference when the boy appeared from the side door to a conference room and ran to hug his mother.
“I don’t want him to leave me anymore. I won’t let him leave me anymore,” Li said as she held onto her son’s hand.
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While child abduction is rampant in China, there exist no official statistics on the average number of children abducted each year. However, Police have helped reunited 6300 children with their families through the DNA testing facility.