'Worst is over' as Chile's 'stolen' babies reunite with mothers
Without speaking, they embraced tearfully: A rare reunification for one the thousands of Chileans taken from their mothers as babies and given up for adoption abroad.
"The worst is over," Edita Bizama, 64, said as she beheld her daughter for the first time since her birth 41 years ago.
Garcia had flown to Santiago with four other women born in Chile and adopted in the United States.
Reports have estimated there were 20,000 such cases from 1950 to 1990 -- most of them during the military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet.
Garcia lives in Puerto Rico, where she works in the financial sector. On her way to reunite with her biological family, she spoke to AFP at a hotel in Houston.
She broke down in tears as she recounted how, as a child, she accidentally found out she was adopted, and then tried for years to shelve the knowledge, before finally making peace with it.
"I am fortunate. I have my mom and dad (in the United States), and now I have another mom and three brothers" in Chile, she said.
Last October, a DNA test confirmed her origins and Garcia arranged to meet her birth mom through the foundation Connecting Roots, which has so far reconnected 36 Chilean women with children taken from them against their will.
- 'Trickery, threats and coercion' -
Infants were taken from their mothers in Chile in a money-making scheme involving doctors, social workers and judges, according to investigations into the matter.
They were delivered to foreign adoptive parents, in some cases for as much as $40,000.
"How were these children taken? Some were (falsely) declared dead at birth, others were stolen from hospitals and institutions or taken from mothers who were manipulated and pressured into giving them up for adoption through trickery, threats and coercion," Connecting Roots vice president Juan Luis Insunza told AFP.
Before Saturday's reunion, Bizama recounted how she was bullied into giving up her newborn daughter by a social worker who told her she could not adequately care for another child.
She was 23 years old at the time, with two other children and a job as a domestic worker, she told AFP in her home city of San Antonio, some 100 kilometers (62 miles) from Santiago.
The father of the child had left her.
"Then they took the baby, and once everything (the paperwork) was done, they sent me away... I left, looking around, not knowing what to do. I wanted to run and find my baby, but it was already done."
Bizama said she "never forgot" about Adamary, even though she did not know even her name.
"She was always here in my mind, in my heart. That's why now I call her 'daughter of my heart'."
For Garcia, whose search started last year after she read an article about baby thefts in Chile, "it has been complex to process this new reality," in which she regards both her birth and adoptive mothers as victims.
But from the first video call with Bizama, she said, she felt "only love."
- 'Out of the blue' -
In Coconut Creek, Florida, the apartment of Adamary's adoptive mother Doria Garcia's abounds with photos of her daughter at different ages.
The 80-year-old Cuban-American told AFP how in 1984, she traveled to Chile to receive her three-month-old daughter, after completing "the usual procedures."
"I have her little face ingrained in my memory: when they handed her to me, smiling," the retired medical assistant recalled.
"And when I held her in my arms, I swear it felt like my heart was bursting."
With pride she describes her daughter as a professional with a good job, but above all "happy."
It was through Adamary's journey that she learned about Chile's stolen babies, she said, and expressed gratitude that her daughter has found a "family that, out of the blue, appears when she's already 41 years old."
burs-ps/mlr/acb
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Forbes
an hour ago
- Forbes
How Crypto Boosts America's $67 Billion Shadow Gambling Industry
While traditional gambling companies struggle to turn consistent profits, a parallel universe of crypto casinos has contributed to an empire worth $81.4 billion in gross gaming revenue, according to controversial new research that challenges everything we thought we knew about online gambling. New data from Yield Sec's comprehensive US analysis sponsored by the The Campaign for Fairer Gambling - analyzed the entire US online gambling marketplace – including iGaming, casino, sports betting and crypto reveals an even starker picture domestically: of the $90.1 billion American online gambling marketplace in 2024, a staggering $67.1 billion—74%—flowed through illegal channels, growing 64% year-over-year compared to just 36% growth for legal operators. The Great Crypto Gambling Deception Most industry analysts have been looking at the wrong numbers entirely, according to Vali. Traditional market research firms peddle sanitized reports claiming the global online gambling market sits around $90 billion total. But these figures only capture the visible, regulated slice of a vastly larger pie, he argues. "Everyone makes the same mistake," explains Ismail Vali, founder of anti-crime platform Yield Sec, whose military-grade monitoring technology has uncovered the true scope of illegal gambling. "We legalize and regulate, then assume crime just disappears. That's not how crime works." The reality is far more troubling, if Vali's estimates prove accurate. In any given marketplace, he claims upwards of 70% of gambling activity flows through illegal channels, exploiting regulatory gaps with surgical precision. When New York restricts gambling to sports betting only, offshore operators immediately offer casino games and prediction markets. When jurisdictions impose age limits of 18 or 21, criminal networks target 14-year-olds instead. Online Gambling's Crypto Fueled Gold Rush Yield Sec's state-by-state analysis reveals the true scope of regulatory capture. California and Texas, with no legal online gambling, see 100% illegal market share worth $5.5 billion and $4.5 billion respectively. But legalization offers no panacea—Ohio's legal operators capture just 15% of their $6.2 billion market, while 917 illegal operators target American consumers from offshore havens. FEATURED | Frase ByForbes™ Unscramble The Anagram To Reveal The Phrase Pinpoint By Linkedin Guess The Category Queens By Linkedin Crown Each Region Crossclimb By Linkedin Unlock A Trivia Ladder Cryptocurrency has become the perfect vehicle for this regulatory arbitrage. Unlike traditional payment methods that leave clear paper trails, crypto transactions offer pseudonymity and cross-border fluidity that regulators struggle to track. The scale is breathtaking, assuming the methodology holds up to scrutiny. alone (the largest crypto casino) reported $4.7 billion in gross gaming revenue for 2024, rivaling the biggest traditional operators. The platform claims 25 million users placing 300 billion bets since 2017, accounting for up to 4% of all bitcoin transactions globally. Yet Stake represents just a fraction of the crypto gambling ecosystem, according to Yield Sec's analysis. The firm claims to have identified tens of thousands of crypto casinos worldwide, each exploiting the same regulatory loopholes with devastating efficiency. The Method Behind The Madness Of Illegal Online Gambling How do you measure an industry that operates in shadows? Yield Sec claims to have adapted counter-terrorism technology originally designed to track ISIS content online, repurposing it to monitor gambling audiences across eight key platforms: search engines, websites, streaming services, mobile apps, affiliate networks, social media, and emerging AI language models. The breakthrough came through what Vali calls 'value per visit': calculating exactly how much money users spend based on their browsing behavior, time spent on gambling pages, and registration patterns. This methodology has, by Vali's account, proven remarkably accurate, correctly predicting Super Bowl and March Madness betting volumes within margins of error that would make pollsters weep with envy. "We've been right every year for three years on those two events," Vali notes. "If we're right legally, we have to be right illegally, because it's the same methodology." The Human Cost Of Crypto Gambling The implications extend far beyond market share battles between Flutter and DraftKings. Crypto casinos typically require minimum deposits 10 times higher than regulated sites, targeting committed gamblers rather than casual players. They offer virtually unlimited product selection, from celebrity death pools to war zone territorial betting, content designed to generate social media engagement that funnels users toward more profitable casino games. Perhaps most disturbing, according to Yield Sec's research, is the deliberate targeting of vulnerable populations. During Brazil's social welfare crisis, Vali's team estimated 25% of public benefits payments flowed directly into gambling sites, a figure the government later confirmed was accurate, lending some credibility to the firm's broader claims. The pandemic revealed crypto gambling's true adaptability. When professional sports shut down, illegal operators didn't panic—they created their own content. "Sports betting farms" now produce streams of amateur basketball games, table tennis matches, even snail racing, all to maintain the content pipeline that drives user acquisition. The Pushback Against Crypto Gambling Industry critics argue Yield Sec's numbers are impossibly high, and their skepticism isn't without merit. Tanzanite, a competitor analytics firm, published a detailed rebuttal claiming crypto gambling represents only $10-11 billion globally. Their methodology relies heavily on blockchain analysis and self-reported figures from major operators—arguably more transparent sources than behavioral inference. But this criticism misses a crucial point, Vali counters: criminal enterprises don't accurately report their revenues. "Do you really believe companies that operate illegally when they're shaking that bag of money saying we're only making this much?" he asks. 'No one is that dumb in the criminal world.' Still, the massive gap between Yield Sec's estimates and those of established research firms raises questions about methodology and potential bias in a company whose business model depends on convincing clients that illegal gambling represents an existential threat. Traditional Casinos Fighting Crypto Casinos In The Shadows Traditional gambling companies find themselves in an impossible position. They spend billions on compliance, taxation, and responsible gambling measures while competing against operators who offer the same products without any of these constraints. Flutter and DraftKings have captured over 80% of the legal US sports betting market, yet both companies have struggled with profitability. The American online gaming industry has produced exactly one profitable quarter in seven years of operation—a stunning indictment of an industry supposedly worth billions. Meanwhile, crypto casinos operate with minimal compliance costs, no meaningful customer protection requirements, and access to markets where traditional operators face outright bans. They've turned regulatory differences into competitive advantages. The Regulatory Maze of Crypto Gambling The numbers expose the fundamental failure of America's patchwork legalization approach. States with fewer legal operators consistently show lower gambling losses as a percentage of income. Oregon, Maine, and Arkansas—with an average of just 2 legal operators each—register below the national average for states with no legalization at all. Meanwhile, in major markets like New York, illegal operators capture 72% of the $7.4 billion market despite legal sports betting being available. The legal landscape remains deliberately murky. Most crypto casinos maintain licenses in jurisdictions like Curaçao or Malta. They are less interested in complying with local laws, but rather interested in securing banking relationships and payment processing services. These "crappy offshore licenses" cost as little as $20,000 but provide zero authorization to target customers in major markets. When challenged, operators retreat behind claims of "gray market" legitimacy. But as Vali puts it bluntly: "There is no gray market. If you're licensed somewhere but taking money from everywhere, you're a thief." Recent developments suggest the regulatory tide may be turning. The UK Gambling Commission has issued 287 cease-and-desist notices to crypto gambling operators since April 2024. Several US states are pursuing legal action against Kalshi and other prediction market platforms that claim federal derivatives regulation supersedes state gambling laws. The Future of Crypto Gambling What emerges from this data is a picture of an industry in transition, though the true scale remains hotly debated. The old model of geography-based regulation is crumbling under the weight of borderless technology and sophisticated criminal enterprises. Yield Sec's research suggests the solution isn't more regulation but better enforcement of existing laws. The technology exists to identify and track illegal gambling operators in real-time, Vali argues. What's missing is the political will to deploy it systematically. The stakes couldn't be higher. As crypto adoption accelerates and regulatory frameworks struggle to keep pace, the illegal gambling industry continues its explosive growth, whether that's measured in tens of billions or hundreds of billions of dollars. Without decisive action, the shadow empire may soon eclipse its legal counterpart entirely. The Campaign for Fairer Gambling's Derek Webb argues that proponents of legalization owe legislators an apology for their 'misleading representations.' With illegal gambling revenue now comparable to America's trade deficits with China or Mexico, the choice facing regulators is stark: implement systematic enforcement using available technology or watch helplessly as the shadow empire completes its conquest of American gambling.
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
Codelco says worker dead, several injured after 'seismic event' at El Teniente mine
(Reuters) -Chilean copper miner Codelco said on Thursday that one worker died at the Andesita project of its El Teniente mine after what it called a 'seismic event' around 5:30 p.m. local time. The company said in a statement it was looking for another five workers, and that nine workers had various injuries but were out of serious risk. Codelco said it immediately suspended activities in the affected area and started an investigation to determine the cause of the incident. El Teniente is the world's largest underground copper deposit and Codelco's flagship mine. Solve the daily Crossword
Yahoo
3 hours ago
- Yahoo
Trump ally calls for big tech 'united front' to fight online safety laws
A "united front" of US social media giants could try to "fight off" regulation implemented in Europe, an American politician has suggested. The idea that big tech companies like Meta, Apple, Microsoft and others could work together against both the UK and EU law was made by Republican senator Scott Fitzgerald, who is chair of the judiciary subcommittee and an ally of President Donald Trump. He was part of a trip that US politicians made to this side of the Atlantic recently around the topic of online regulation. This included meetings with both the UK, EU and European member states, as well as discussions with big tech companies. Speaking to journalists, Mr Fitzgerald said he asked Facebook owner Meta whether the businesses had been working together - but said they "wouldn't confirm that". He added: "There may be some value in some type of united front in trying to fight these things off in Europe." This was in reference to both the UK's Online Safety Act, and similar European regulation. Mr Fitzgerald went on to say that he thinks the White House "certainly is interested in finding out" what the delegation discovered. "I'm not sure if it can be elevated to a level of something that the president would talk about publicly and on the global stage, but this stuff is dangerous. "And I think it needs to be addressed, and so I certainly expect to talk to the platforms and talk to the White House as well." Read more As well as Mr Fitzgerald, Republicans Jim Jordan and Kevin Kiley were also on the trip - both of whom are politically close to Mr Trump. In a recent thread on social media, Mr Jordan accused the UK government of trying to censor US tech companies last summer during the riots that took place after the Southport killings. He shared emails the committee obtained from tech organisations showing the UK government asking for information and wanting to know what was being done by the companies during the rioting. A report by the UK Commons Science and Technology Committee into the events last year found that "social media business models incentivise the spread of content that is damaging and dangerous, and did so in a manner that endangered public safety in the hours and days following the Southport murders".But Mr Jordan said that the government asking for companies to tell them what was being done to tackle reports of a "two-tiered system" was concerning. He added that such an attempt by the UK government to get information from technology companies would "chill speech". Mr Jordan and the delegation met the UK Technology Secretary Peter Kyle on Wednesday. The topic of the impact of UK law on American companies came up, in what is understood to have been a polite meeting.
