A boy who was kidnapped from a park in California when he was six has been reunited with his family after 70 years, The Guardian reported on the 22nd. According to the article, Luis Armando Albino was reunited with his family in Oakland for the first time in 70 years in June with the help of an online ancestor search, police, and the FBI.
Albino, who was born in Puerto Rico, was separated from his family on February 21, 1951, when he was in a park in West Oakland with his older brother Roger Albino when he was tricked by a Spanish-speaking woman who promised to buy him candy.
After being kidnapped, Albino lived as the son of a couple living in the eastern region, served in the Marines during the Vietnam War, and worked as a firefighter after his discharge. The search for Albino began in 2020 when his niece, Alida Alequin (63), took an online DNA test for fun. Alequin found out that there was a man whose test results matched 22% of his, and began investigating, thinking that he could be his kidnapped uncle, but at the time, there were no significant results. However, early this year, he reported this to the Oakland Police Department after finding an old newspaper article with Albino’s photo at the Oakland Public Library. The police later re-investigated Albino’s disappearance and confirmed that Albino was the missing boy through DNA tests on Albino and his younger sister, Alequin’s mother. On June 24, Albino visited Oakland with the assistance of the FBI and was reunited with his younger sister, Alequin’s mother, and his older brother, Roger Albino.
Roger Albino, who had been investigated by the police several times since his brother went missing, died last month, two months after finding his brother. Alequin, who played a crucial role in finding his maternal uncle, said that his maternal grandmother never gave up hope that her son was alive until he passed away in 2005, and that even though he had been missing for over 70 years, Albino was always in the hearts of his family.