Kidnapped Argentinian Girl Found in Toraja
Jakarta. Indonesian police have found a 7-year-old Argentinian girl who had been kidnapped by her own father eight months ago in Toraja, South Sulawesi, state news agency Antara reported on Thursday (08/02).
The girl, Alum Langone Avalos was taken by her father last June from her school, her mother Elizabeth Avalos said earlier this week.
Avalos had been trying to track her missing daughter since then and recently believed her ex-husband and their daughter had entered Indonesia illegally.
She had been seeking help from Indonesian authorities and the public to help find the girl, including by releasing missing child posters featuring pictures of Alum and her father.
The father, Jorge Langone, had brought Alum to Toraja where local police found her. She had since been flown to Jakarta to be reunited with her mother, who has custody rights, at the Argentinian embassy.
Before they ended up in Indonesia, Langone and Alum had traveled to Bolivia, Brazil and spent several months in various locations in Malaysia and then entered Indonesia through Batam.
Argentina's ambassador to Indonesia, Ricardo Luis Bocalandro, met National Police chief Gen. Tito Karnavian on Thursday to thank the Indonesian police for their efforts to find Alum.
Tito said Indonesian police officers had responded quickly after receiving a red notice for Langone and a yellow notice for Alum from Interpol.
"We sent a team to Toraja on Tuesday and with the assistance of local police found the girl, and also arrested the kidnapper and his girlfriend," Brig. Gen. Napoleon Bonaparti, the secretary general of Indonesia’s Interpol, the National Central Bureau (NCB), said.
Langone and Alum had been traveling with the father's girlfriend, Candela Guiterres. Langone and Guiterres had been taken into custody by Indonesia's Immigration Office for further investigation.
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