A 23-year-old woman from Laredo, Texas, Vanessa Valadez, has admitted to her role in a child trafficking operation that involved drugging young girls with melatonin-infused gummies. This confession comes at a time when border officials are raising concerns about an increase in child smuggling across the southern border of the United States.
Valadez pleaded guilty on Friday to collaborating with her family members to smuggle children under the age of five from Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, into the US between August and September 2023. One of her accomplices sent a message during one operation, which included a picture of an unconscious girl and the words, “we knocked her out with some gummies.”
According to Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), Valadez and her family were responsible for smuggling at least four young girls into the country. The children were picked up from a location across the border, drugged, and then presented with counterfeit birth certificates to pass them off as family members.
Following their arrival in Laredo, the girls were transported further into the US and left with unidentified individuals for unspecified reasons. The trafficking operation was eventually exposed during a routine inspection by border agents on September 21, 2023.
Three of the girls smuggled into the US remain unidentified, and their current whereabouts are unknown, as stated by HSI. Valadez’s accomplices, Ana Laura Bryand, 47; Kayla Marie Bryand, 20; Jose Eduardo Bryand, 43; Nancy Guadalupe Bryand, 44; and Lizeth Esmeralda Bryand Arredondo, 32, from Mexico, have all previously pleaded guilty to their involvement in the operation.
This alarming revelation comes as US border agents warn of a rising trend in child trafficking along the border, with the full extent of the problem still unknown. Border Patrol sources have reported an increase in smugglers using children to pose as family units, with some children appearing at the border multiple times accompanied by different adults.
The fate of these trafficked children remains uncertain, but officials fear they are at risk of child labor and sexual exploitation. Similar to the Valadez case, smugglers have been found to drug children with sleep aids and use fake birth certificates to create false identities.