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Written by carlos
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Monday, 16 February 2009 20:21 |
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By Ysabel Bilbao  BOISE -- Police believe a young boy at the center of a custody battle may now be in Mexico with his mother.
Margaret "Maika" Dunbar-Alcalde, 58, is wanted by Boise Police for second-degree kidnapping.
The boy's father believes she's taken their son Max-Gian out of the country and he's contacted the FBI.
Even though the agency can't confirm they are investigating this particular case, the FBI tells us they have handled similar international abduction cases in Idaho, and they are never easy.
A treaty signed two decades ago by dozens of countries gives parents an avenue to get their kids back.
No one is sure where seven-year-old Max-Gian is right now.
But his father Marco Alcalde says he could have been taken as far away as Mexico.
Now he is working with authorities locally to try and find his child.
"She had custody so until she didn't bring him back there was nothing legally anyone could say," said Marco Alcalde.
Max-Gian left Boise on November 26 to spend a week with this mom. He was to be returned the following Sunday, but he did not come home on a flight from California, and that’s when his dad called police.
"There's a strong indication that she has certainly left Idaho and left California and into Mexico," said Marco Alcalde.
Marco's case is not unusual on a national level, but it is unusual in Idaho.
"We have always found the person that we are looking for, the problem is getting that person from another country," said FBI agent John Morton.
The Hague Convention, founded in 1980, is supposed to protect children abducted and taken overseas.
Morton says it works like a treaty and 64 countries participate, including Mexico.
With FBI offices scattered throughout the country, agents work with Mexican officials to find a child and have them returned.
“We will work with those offices, our FBI counterparts in Mexico City for example, who then work with Mexican authorities, who then in the judicial process try to take that child and have him or her removed back to the U.S.," said Morton.
"I need to stay focused and get as much resources on this as we can and make it a priority to have her found," said Marco Alcalde.
What Marco knows right now is that Margaret has a passport for her and Max-Gian. She has copies of their birth certificates and sold her home in Lake Tahoe, pocketing about $150,000.
What he doesn't know is where Max-Gian is, and how he will find his son.
"I worry for my son, I don't know what kind of impact this has on children and I don't know what she is telling him now, because he would be wanting to call his papa, that's what he would do," said Marco Alcalde.
The last time Marco spoke with his son was on November 30 when he received a call from the Los Angeles Airport. He had been traveling with his mother and Marco had been told that they were headed to visit a friend. But that friend says there was no visit.
Article from: http://www.ktvb.com/news/localnews/stories/ktvbn-dec1008-kidnapped_boy_mexico.4e0b31be.html
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