Woman admits to drugging migrant kids with melatonin gummies as part of child-trafficking ring

Wednesday, September 25, 2024 - A Texas woman has confessed to drugging young girls with melatonin gummies while trafficking them into the US.

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 phoney 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.

Valdez and her conspirators were finally foiled on Sept. 21, 2023, during a routine inspection by border agents.

Three of the girls smuggled into the US remain unidentified, and their locations are unknown, HSI said in a statement.

Valdez’s co-conspirators were Ana Laura Bryand, 47; and her niece Kayla Marie Bryand, 20; Jose Eduardo Bryand, 43; Nancy Guadalupe Bryand, 44; and 32-year-old Lizeth Esmeralda Bryand Arredondo, of Mexico. Each previously pleaded guilty to their part in the sick conspiracy.

The shocking confessions come as US border agents are warning that child trafficking is on the rise along the border.

Border Patrol sources previously told The Post they’ve seen an uptick in smugglers using kids to pose as family units and sometimes see kids turn up at the border multiple times but with different adults each time.