Kidnapped 2-Year-Old Found Safe in Bali: Suspects Arrested

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This photograph of  Zonia Maria Garcia, 33, who is accused of kidnapping a two-year-old boy, was widely circulated on the Internet before police asked that it be taken down out of concern for the child’s welfare. 

JakartaGlobe -  By Harry Jacques -  June 13, 2013

A two-year-old French boy whose picture was widely circulated on social media websites on Wednesday was found “in good health” in Bali after he was kidnapped on Wednesday morning by a woman from East Timor and a male accomplice, Bali Police and the French embassy confirmed on Thursday afternoon.

The two-year-old from La Réunion, a French administrative territory in the Indian Ocean, was abducted from the Three Brothers Bungalows in the Legian area in the early hours of Wednesday morning.

Staff at Three Brothers Bungalows said a woman had taken the boy from the hotel at around 4 a.m., but did not comment on how the woman left the hotel.

M. Agustiawan, chief detective of the Kuta Police, told the Jakarta Globe that the boy’s father had gone out to the Bounty Discotheque in Kuta, where he had met the suspect, whom police have identified as Zonia Maria Gracia, a 33-year-old East Timor national who lives in Dili, said to be on vacation in Bali with her boyfriend, Manuel Henriques Suarez, 45, also from Dili.

He then went back to the Three Brothers Bungalows with Zonia. When he awakened, both the boy and Zonia had disappeared.

Agustiawan said the boy’s father was traveling only with his son.

The father requested CCTV footage from the hotel, which led police to identify the suspect. Inquiries with local residents soon found that Zonia had left in a rented car with a driver, who told police she was dropped off at Jalan Pulau Moyo, some seven kilometers east of the bungalows.

Police traced the suspects from there and arrested Zonia and Suarez this afternoon.

Zonia told police she “had wanted to take care of the baby,” Agustiawan said, but police were more persuaded by the view that it was her intention to sell the child, adding that they needed money to return to Dili and were known to police there.

Dominique Roubert, press officer for the French embassy in Jakarta, said French investigators had been working with Indonesian police to find the boy and his abductors.

“The French embassy has been informed by Indonesian police authorities in Bali that the boy has been found in good health this afternoon at around 3:30 p.m. in Singaraja,” Roubert said earlier on Thursday. “He is now being returned to his father in Kuta.”

“We are glad that the Indonesian police have been able to respond rapidly to the situation and wish to give our highest appreciation for their effective work,” he said, adding that most of the work to find the boy had been done by local officers.

Two different pictures, one purported to be of the boy, the other of Zonia, were widely circulated on social media websites on Wednesday, but police in Bali requested a media blackout on Thursday out of concern for the boy’s welfare.

Natalia Perry, founder of Safe Childhoods Foundation, a child-protection NGO based in Bali, who has been in close contact with both the family and French police since the boy was kidnapped, wrote on Facebook on Thursday afternoon, “I’m the Director of Safe Childhoods Foundation in Bali. I’ve been in touch all morning with the French police who are involved closely in this case. They’re very worried about how dangerous this woman might be and are asking us to remove images of her for now because it might scare her and endanger [the boy] further. If you’ve posted a photo of her please can you take the photo of her down for now and ask the others to too.”

A few hours later, police caught up with Zonia and Suarez and the boy was later reunited with his father.

At the time of writing, no charges have been filed. A police investigation is ongoing.

— Additional reporting by Abdul Qowi Bastian and Ethan Harfenist

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