A teen girl who officials say was abducted from her job at a Wendy’s restaurant in Idaho was found in Arizona on May 21.
Officials believe she was abducted by 18-year-old Miguel Rodriguez-Perez.
An AMBER Alert was issued for Rios-Chavez by the Arizona Department of Transportation. Officials said that Rodriguez-Perez’s cell phone was tracked to Kingman, Arizona, adding that he “has contacts in Mexico.”
According to Fox10, Rios-Chavez “appeared to be unharmed” and was waiting to reunite with her family.
Rodriguez-Perez was taken into custody without incident, the report said.
Officers found his vehicle, a black Audi car that matched the AMBER Alert description, and tried to pull it over. The car sped away and was found by officers some time later, Fox10 reported.
The two were both found after five hours.
Reports did not indicate whether Rodriguez-Perez would face any charges.
Missing Children
There were 464,324 missing children reported in the FBI’s National Crime Information Center in 2017, according to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Under federal law, when a child is reported missing to law enforcement they must be entered into the database. In 2016, there were 465,676 entries.“This number represents reports of missing children. That means if a child runs away multiple times in a year, each instance would be entered into NCIC separately and counted in the yearly total. Likewise, if an entry is withdrawn and amended or updated, that would also be reflected in the total,” the center noted.
In 2017, the center said it assisted officers and families with the cases of more than 27,000 missing children. In those cases, 91 percent were endangered runaways, and 5 percent were family abductions.
About one in seven children reported missing to the center in 2017 were likely victims of human trafficking.
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