Meet the forensic expert who uses DNA tests to trace and return lost children to families around the world

While helping Peruvian police with an investigation in the early hours of the morning, forensic genetics expert José Lorente was struck by the sight of children milling around in the streets of the country’s capital without their families.

“I asked the police what the children were doing up so late,” he said. “Some were lost, some had disappeared, they said, but there was nothing they could do to identify them. This got me thinking.”

Professor Lorente wondered if DNA could help reunite these children with their families – and the idea for DNA-ProKids was born.

The programme uses our unique genetic footprint to trace thousands of missing children around the world. Some have been stolen from their parents and trafficked for sex or as slave labour, others sold in illegal adoptions, and some lost in hospital mix-ups.

Now, 20 years after Professor Lorente’s flash of inspiration, DNA-ProKids works with governments in Peru, Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Paraguay, Thailand, Brazil, India and Malaysia.

The humanitarian programme, financed by the University of Granada in Spain, works alongside Returned, a United States-based charity to find missing children.

To kickstart the programme, Professor Lorente used contacts he made during his time at Quantico, the FBI headquarters, where he was working on a genetics project.

One beneficiary was Nayelis Vallecillo, who was reunited with her baby daughter Somaara after the child was stolen in Guatemala City. The 19-year-old Nicaraguan refugee was drugged and the month-old infant taken last November.

“Someone on Facebook said she was going to help me,” she says in an interview with Returned. “I was not feeling well and she gave me two pills. Innocently, I took them. We were in a shopping centre. Thank God there were cameras. She took me outside and left me under a tree.”

Guatemala’s government, which uses the DNA-ProKids programme, contacted the police who were able to find the baby using DNA within 48 hours. The thief, who was wearing a mask because of the pandemic, could not be identified.

“I am very happy about what they did to find my daughter. The DNA test helps us to be more secure. It is a privilege to have this at no extra cost,” said Ms. Vallecillo.

Professor Lorente is a high-profile figure in Spain for his investigations into the origins of Christopher Columbus and Simon de Bolivar, the founder of Venezuela. DNA-ProKids remains his pet project.

“The idea was to use DNA to try to find a match between two samples and reunite people. It is a solution to a problem,” Professor Lorente says. “We want to fight against trafficking in children.”

The world of illegal adoption is, according to the Spanish scientist, a “big business” which supplies work for lawyers, doctors and others.

“If there aren’t enough children then they steal them. People come from Europe or somewhere else thinking everything is okay and in fact they are entering into an illegal migration ring,” he said.

“From the countries of origin they steal the children and they take them to a country of destiny.”

As Europe faces an ongoing migration crisis, some women who were rescued from flimsy boats with children in the Mediterranean off southern Spain did not appear to be attached to the infants.

“Police noticed that the mothers were very distant – then they realised that they were dealing with child trafficking,” said Professor Lorente. “We did some DNA tests and realised that they were not mother and child,” he added. “The same has happened with families coming from Syria. It happens anywhere where there are big migration routes.”

A father of two grown-up daughters, Professor Lorente believes he has helped reunite about 1,900 families over the years.

And the service is not just useful in suspected cases of criminal wrong-doing such as trafficking.

Marilyn Medrano was reunited with her 18-month-old son, Dennis, after a DNA test. He was accidentally swapped by a nurse shortly after his birth in a mix-up over identification bracelets. Ms Medrano believed that her son was a baby called Carlosito, who she took home from the hospital.

Her husband Cornelio Cordero had his doubts that Carlosito was his biological son and eventually sought out a geneticist to carry out a DNA test. When she discovered the boy she had brought up was not really hers, it was hard to accept.

“I never thought of doing a DNA test. A few days later when they brought the results… it was very difficult. My world was falling apart,” she said.

Carlosito will be returned to his biological parents following a period of therapy. After 90 DNA tests were carried out on babies who had been in the hospital at the time of the birth, Dennis was found and returned to his family.

“When they told us that they had found him, there was a unique feeling, a joy,” Ms Medrano said.

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