A 23-year-old Texas woman, Vanessa Valadez, has confessed to her involvement in a child trafficking ring that used melatonin-laced gummies to sedate young girls. This revelation comes amid growing concerns from border officials about the escalating issue of child smuggling across the southern border of the United States.
Valadez, a resident of Laredo, Texas, pleaded guilty on Friday to working with her family to smuggle children under five years old from Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, into the U.S. between August and September 2023. During one of the operations, an accomplice sent a message that included a photo of an unconscious girl with the caption, “we knocked her out with some gummies.”
Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) reports that Valadez and her family were implicated in smuggling at least four young girls into the country. The children were collected from a location across the border, sedated, and then given fake birth certificates to pass them off as family members.
Upon reaching Laredo, the girls were transported deeper into the U.S. and left with unknown individuals for undisclosed reasons. The trafficking ring was uncovered during a routine inspection by border agents on September 21, 2023.
Three of the girls smuggled into the U.S. remain unidentified, and their current locations are unknown, according to 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, all from Mexico, have all previously confessed to their roles in the operation.
This disturbing disclosure comes as U.S. border agents warn of an increasing trend in child trafficking along the border, with the full scope of the problem yet to be determined. Border Patrol sources have noted a rise in smugglers using children to pose as family units, with some children appearing at the border multiple times with different adults.
The future 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 sedate children with sleep aids and use counterfeit birth certificates to create false identities.