To catch a baby broker

Victoria Corderi Correspondent • Profile

They are adorable, playful and often wistful. These are the faces of children who need love, and a new home. They are children who are being offered for international adoption.

Jennell: She looked so lost. And she had this big dress on. And I thought 'Oh, I’d love to put a smile on her face.'

This little girl, whose photo reveals a sweet child with a forlorn expression, captured the hearts of this couple from New York.

Jennell: I knew the second I saw her, that - that was our little girl.

But was she? There's so much the camera does not reveal, especially in the sometimes secretive and shadowy world of international adoption.

We'll take you into that world with a hidden camera investigation that unveils shady operators accused of emptying wallets and breaking promises. It’s a world where unsuspecting families, and innocent children, become victims.

Who are these children? Are they really available? Or are they just bait to lure dollars out of Americans who want to adopt?

Jennell: Even before I wanted biological children, I knew I wanted to adopt.
Jason: I've wanted to adopt since I was probably about six.

Jason and Jennell say their longtime desire to adopt stems from having lived in South America, where they witnessed what poverty and hopelessness can do to children.

Jason: There's hundreds of thousands of children on the streets without a home, without anyone to take care of them.
Jennell: I used to see little three, four year olds on the street, all alone.
Victoria Corderi: So it's heartbreaking when you think what you could do?
Jennell: (nods yes)

The couple had one biological child, a son, and then tried to adopt from Brazil. But after waiting for two  years for a child to become available, they turned to Guatemala. This small, impoverished Central American country has become so popular for adoptions that one out of every 100 children born here is adopted by Americans.

Jennell: They said there was a possibility of it being done in four months, and that usually it was six months.

Because the adoption process in Guatemala is generally fast, the country has been called an adoption paradise.

Until recently, the system was run not by the government, but by private enterprise, for profit. And that,  critics say, created a paradise for fraud.

Manuel Manrique, UNICEF: We are seeing all kinds of things happening to children, like kidnappings.

Manuel Manrique heads the Guatemala office of UNICEF - the United Nations Children’s Fund. He says while not all Guatemalan adoptions are corrupt, baby snatching, extortion and pay-offs have turned the country into a virtual baby farm.

Victoria Corderi: You're talking about hard core commerce?
Manuel Manrique, UNICEF: Right.
Victoria Corderi: Children for sale?
Manuel Manrique, UNICEF: Definitely. Commerce. Linked to illegality and criminality I would say.

Jennell: I was very worried about going through Guatemala - because I’d heard all the bad press.
Victoria Corderi: And what were your fears?
Jennell: Heard that mothers were coerced into giving up babies.

Still, Jennell and Jason say they decided to adopt from Guatemala anyway - with one precaution. Since most of the corruption they'd heard about involved babies, they intentionally asked for an older child.

Jennell: We decided not to go for a baby, to go for an older child because we hadn't heard any problems with that.

Like most people who adopt from Guatemala, the couple was working with a U.S. adoption agency. The agencies, which charge an average of $25,000 per child, hire people on the ground in Guatemala to find and take care of adoptable children, and handle all the necessary paperwork. Jason and Jennell say their agency -- Adoption Blessings of Macon, Georgia -- told them Angie, the little girl in the big white dress, was in desperate need of a home.

Jennell: They said she was 18 months old. That she had just been given up. Her mother couldn't care for her anymore.

That was November of 2006. Over the next few months, Jason and Jennell received more photos, sent gifts and, they say, became deeply attached to Angie.

Jason: At this point, she's our daughter -- to us.
Victoria Corderi: She was in the family?
Jason: A-huh
Jennell: Yeah.

But suddenly, things started to go wrong. First it was an age discrepancy -- the agency sent a birth certificate that said Angie was 2 1/2 years old, not 18 months. Then it was a shocking phone call: the agency said Angie had been taken from the foster home where she was being cared for in some kind of police raid.

Jennell: It was like a nightmare.
Jason: Police had come in, grabbed the kids and taken them away.

Making matters worse, there were few details about the raid or what happened to Angie.

Jennell: I would wake up with images of her wondering where she was.
Jason: She was waking up in cold sweats, and crying at night.

Jennell was so distraught, Jason decided to go to Guatemala to find out for himself what was going on.

Jason: There's got to be something I can do. And I can't stand being in the U.S. not doing anything.

Jason and Jennell were about to begin a painful odyssey into the dark side of Guatemalan adoption. Angie's picture would never again look the same.

Jennell: It's a little girl who's been through something no child should have to go through.

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