Boy who was kidnapped at six discovered 73 years later

A six-year-old boy who was abducted from a park, while he played with his older brother, has been found 73 years later.

Puerto Rican born Luis Armando Albino, now 79, who was one of five siblings, was abducted on February 21, 1951, and has been missing ever since, leaving his family heartbroken. Luis was taken from a park in West Oakland in California while he played alongside his ten-year-old brother, Rodger.

The woman who snatched him lured Luis away after promising that she would ‘buy him candy’, before he was taken and then flown to the East Coast, where he was later adopted by a couple from New York.

READ MORE: ‘God of Chaos’ asteroid could hit Earth sooner than expected after experts ‘revise’ data

You can read more news from Daily Star here.

When Luis was first abducted, the Police, Coast Guard and army soldiers combed the region looking for him, with the FBI later being brought in to help. Unfortunately, no trace of Luis could be found and the case ended up going cold, with his kidnap spanning seven decades.

Despite her son being missing for so long, Luis’s mother never gave up hope that he would return home. However, she sadly died in 2005 without knowing what happened to her beloved son.

But earlier this year, Luis’s niece, 63-year-old Alida Alequin became determined to track her long-lost uncle down. She said: She always felt he was alive. She took that with her to her grave. All this time the family kept thinking of him. I always knew I had an uncle. We spoke of him a lot. My grandmother carried the original article in her wallet, and she always talked about him. A picture of him was always hung at the family home.”

Using a combination of DNA testing and information from old newspaper clippings about Luis’s disappearance, Alida, along with local law enforcement, was able to crack the case. After she did an online DNA test in 2020, Alida was matched with Luis who was a 22 percent match. At the time, Alida reached out to Luis but explained that she ‘never heard back’.

Alida, along with her daughters, later found a microfilm of photos at the Oakland Public Library of Luis, which led them to realise that he was in fact their long-lost uncle. Luis, who had become a father and grandfather himself, was able to reunite with his older brother Rodger.

Unfortunately, the reunion of the two brothers was bittersweet as Rodger was dying from cancer, but Alida said that the pair ‘grabbed each other’ in a ‘really tight, long hug’ and then sat down and ‘just talked’. While the missing person’s case has now been closed as Luis has been found, according to the FBI the kidnapping is still being investigated.

Luis explained that when he would ask anyone in his ‘immediate vicinity’ in New York about the kidnapping his questions were never answered. As the people he thought of as his parents are now dead, he’s unfortunately unable to gather any further insight into whether they were aware of where he had come from or the fact he had been taken.

For the latest breaking news and stories from across the globe from the Daily Star, sign up for our newsletters .