Son stolen 32 years ago meets his parents
Police reunited Mao Yin with his parents, having used a picture of him as a child to generate an image of how he would look today
Police reunited Mao Yin with his parents, having used a picture of him as a child to generate an image of how he would look today
AFP/GETTY IMAGES
A Chinese man stolen from his parents 32 years ago as a toddler has been tearfully reunited with them, after police used a photograph of him as a child and facial recognition technology to track him down.
Mao Yin was two years old when he was snatched in the central city of Xi’an in 1988 and sold for £690 in today’s money to a childless couple in Sichuan province 600 miles away.
Mr Mao was abducted when he was two
Police created an image of Mr Mao based on the childhood photo and scanned the national database to find close facial matches. Mr Mao, 34, had no idea that he had been taken and sold as a child. He was abducted when his father was distracted while fetching a drink of water for his son on the way home from nursery.
His mother, Li Jingzhi, said that she quit her job to try to find him, sending more than 100,000 flyers and appearing on TV. Then late last month, the search narrowed after police in Xi’an received a tip-off. They tracked down Mr Mao and a DNA test confirmed his identity.
At the reunion organised by the police, Mr Mao ran into his mother’s arms. “I don’t want him to leave me any more. I won’t let him leave me any more,” she said.
Mr Mao, who runs a home decoration business in Sichuan, said he intended to move to Xi’an to live with his birth parents.
Police have not said what has happened to the parents who brought him up, other than that an inquiry is continuing. Child abduction became widespread in China from the 1980s, when a one-child rule was enforced.