Toddler rescued 15 hours after abduction before Chinese New Year

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A three-year-old boy was rescued by police just 15 hours after he was kidnapped by a woman on Thursday, two days before the Spring Festival.

A Shenzhen resident surnamed Zhao reported shortly after 5 p.m. on Thursday that his son had gone missing while playing near their home. The family searched for him for over an hour but could not find him.

The local police found via surveillance video that shortly after 3:40 p.m. the boy was taken away in a taxi by a middle-aged woman, whom the family did not know.

A boy is seen taken away by a woman in the surveillance video. /Weibo via Shanghai Morning Post

The police identified the woman as 34-year-old migrant worker from Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. She was unemployed and lived in a hotel in Shenzhen. When the police arrived at her hotel, they found that the woman surnamed Wei took the boy to the hotel but had checked out and left.

Police found that Wei appeared at the Luohu Railway Station in Shenzhen shortly after 5 p.m. and they concluded that she had left Shenzhen by train. With help from railway police, they found that Wei boarded a train with the boy to Wuchang of Hubei Province, at 6 p.m.

Wei was spotted on the train. When the train arrived in Wuchang shortly after 6 a.m. Friday, the police arrested the woman and rescued the boy.

The boy's abductor in custody. /Weibo via Shanghai Morning Post

Wei said she took the boy to fake as her own son to repair the relationship with her former boyfriend. Wei gave birth to a boy in 2015 in Shenzhen, who died shortly after. Wei broke up with her boyfriend soon after the birth however the boyfriend was unaware of the baby’s death. This year she wanted to meet her ex-boyfriend in Hubei Province for Spring Festival.

(Source: China Daily)