Police report Danish adoption center after TV 2 documentary

The Danish adoption agency DIA has been reported to the police after information has come to light that several children may have been adopted illegally to Denmark.

The adoption center DIA (Danish International Adoption) has been reported to the police because illegal adoptions may have taken place between 1979 and 1995. This happens after a TV 2 documentary which brings information that casts doubt on whether adoptions may have taken place from Chile to Denmark in violation of the rules.

As TV2 ØST could tell on Sunday , Rune Renato Hansen from Tølløse is one of the 111 Chilean children who were adopted to Denmark during the period. In the TV 2 documentary "De stjålne børn" he travels to Chile with his friend Christina Birkemose from Haslev, where they get to reinforce the suspicion that he may have been adopted against his parents' wishes.

In 2018, it emerged that it is believed that up to half of the 20,000 Chilean children who were adopted from Chile in the period between 1970 and 1990 have been stolen.

It is on the basis of information that comes to light in the TV 2 documentary about Danish adoptions from 1979 to 1995 that Christina Birkemose has lodged a report with the North Zealand Police.

- I am a resident of this community, and I have to know if we can trust what is going on here. It's that simple, she says to TV2 ØST.

Correspondence raises suspicions

The documentary reads out correspondence between the former director of AC Children's Aid, Folmer Lund Nielsen, and the Chilean social worker Ruth Chia, who is suspected of being behind several illegal adoptions.

However, AC Børnehjælp does not exist today, as the organization merged with DanAdopt in 2015 - instead, the adoption mediating organization DIA was created, which took over the archives of both former organisations.

DIA has allowed access to these archives in the making of the documentary "De stjålne børn", and here it appears that, among other things, Ruth Chia has written to Folmer Lund Nielsen from AC Children's Aid that each group of arriving children must consist of a maximum of five children, as it can otherwise give the impression that you are "exporting" Chilean children.

In the late 70s, Ruth Chia also begins to find adoptions for the Danish adoption agency privately, which she asks Folmer Lund Nielsen not to mention to others, and for which she charges a much higher price than when they come from the Casa Nacional orphanage del Niño.

She also demands that AC Children's Aid only uses a specific airline to deliver the children, as another airline has reacted with suspicion. To this Folmer Lund Nielsen replies: "I agree with you on this".

Want the police to investigate

It is on the basis of the correspondence between Ruth Chia and Folmer Lund Nielsen that Christina Birkemose is now reacting.

- Those correspondences, I think, are very disturbing. They mean that I cannot feel certain in advance that no criminal acts have taken place in connection with the adoption of the children from their respective home countries to Denmark, says Christina Birkemose.

She believes that it is crucial that the police now investigate whether illegal activities have taken place through the Danish adoption agency, and whether the agency has additional correspondence lying around that can shed light on the case.

- The idea that there could be many children - from many countries - and that there could be many adoptive families who have not shown this, I cannot have that sitting on my conscience. And if it is not investigated by the police, then we will never find out, she says.

The former director of AC Children's Aid, Folmer Lund Nielsen, died in 2021. TV2 ØST has spoken to Robert Jonasen, director of DIA, who states that they have not yet received an inquiry from the police. As long as they don't have it, they don't have any comments.