Woman Admits to Drugging Migrant Kids With Melatonin Gummies as Part of Child-Trafficking Ring: ‘We Knocked Her Out’
A Texas woman has confessed to drugging young girls with melatonin gummies while trafficking them into the US — just as border agents are warning that kids are being smuggled through similar means all across the southern border.
Vanessa Valadez, 23, of Laredo, pleaded guilty Friday to working with family members to smuggle children under the age of 5 into the country from Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, between August and September 2023.
“La noquiamos con unas gomitas,” one of Valdez’s co-conspirators wrote in a message alongside an image of a passed out girl during one operation — which translates to “we knocked her out with some gummies.”
Valdez and her family smuggled at least four young girls into the country, according to Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), picking them up from a stash house across the border and drugging them before using phony birth certificates to try to pass them off as family members.
After Laredo, the girls were taken deeper into the US and left with unknown people for unknown purposes. (Read more from “Woman Admits to Drugging Migrant Kids With Melatonin Gummies as Part of Child-Trafficking Ring: ‘We Knocked Her Out’ HERE)
