TESTIMONY. Tarn-et-Garonne: parents victims of a mafia adoption network file a complaint for fraud

Véronique and Jean-Noël Piaser adopted a Sri Lankan baby in 1985. In 2018, they discovered that the little orphan had in fact been stolen from her mother. A huge shock. After a careful investigation, they decided to file a complaint this Friday.

The Piaser couple had two boys of around ten when they decided to adopt a child. In 1985, two-week-old Maria entered their lives. But 33 years later, in 2018, when she wants to find her biological parents, the family discovers the unthinkable. Maria was stolen from her Sri Lankan mother by mobsters. The young woman and her adoptive and natural parents were victims of a sector known in Sri Lanka as a "baby business".

The Piaser couple discovered it before their daughter. Anticipating the trip, to save time in the process, they ask a Sri Lankan friend to start the research. " We gave him the adoption file, which was only 6 or 7 pages long, explains Véronique Piaser . He began to inquire (…) and called us back to tell us: it's a baby business" .

"We must tell him about this disaster"

“ There everything collapses!” Continues the adoptive mother. To tell her child: the circumstances of your adoption were villainous and we were cheated. It's super difficult, because we love him and he is our girl. And at the same time, you have to tell her about this catastrophe .

There everything collapses!

Jean-Noël and Véronique Piaser are sucked into a real nightmare. They take a week " to say to yourself: we have to be sure of ourselves. We must not tell him impressions because it is super serious. We have never been in denial (…) we went on the internet. We typed in some key words and there, the truth fell on us ".

They find out that journalists from the Netherlands had carried out an investigation a year earlier. "It was our story and it was the story that our friend told us in Sri Lanka. Yes, it was a baby business, child trafficking. And on the screen, we saw our interlocutors dumbfounded. 1985, those who were thought to be, for Mrs. Perera, an orphanage director. In fact, she was a mafieu ".

The altruistic dream collapses

At the time of the adoption, " we felt that there were enough children on the planet and that we were acting as responsible citizens by adopting a child who needed parents" says Véronique Piaser in one book at a time intense and captivating, entitled "Titania, story of a Baby Business", which she has just published. But the altruistic dream collapses.

The adoptive parents discover, alongside their daughters in 2018, the existence of baby farms, false orphanages.

It is a place where both pregnant women and surrogate mothers are gathered ... when we steal or make parents believe that the child is dead, we must set up a partner in crime.

Véronique Piaser.

She adds: "We also think, and this is the survey carried out by Swiss academics, that there are women who have been prostituted to be pregnant and produce children."

International mafia networks

In France, 1,500 Sri Lankan children were adopted in the 1980s. According to the Swiss and Dutch authorities who investigated the same networks, 75% of the children were stolen or bought. During the adoption procedure, the Piaser couple did not suspect anything.

"We trusted the French administration , remembers Véronique Piaser. We, when we went to adopt our daughter in Sri Lanka in 1985, we had a file in due form, stamped by the Ministry of External Relations, a approval of the DDASS (...). We wait for them to tell us that we, the adoptive parents, were not accomplices ".

"The ambassadors knew"

For the Piaser, the State must admit its faults and apologize. The couple have been investigating for two years. In the diplomatic archives, they explained that they had found letters dating from 1983. " The ambassadors knew very well that it was children's purchases. And the local press, the Sri Lankan press denounced it".

And now, in the ministry, they know that we know they knew.

Véronique Piaser

“The problem of the State , adds Jean-Noël Piaser, is that we are witnesses. With children, it's easy, they don't remember. They don't know, which is normal. we are witnesses, we know how it happened and it bothers them ".

Complaint against X

These events completely upset the family balance and the relations between Maria and her parents. Parents who want to go to the end of their fight. This Friday, their lawyers file a complaint against X for fraud, concealment of fraud, breach of trust and criminal association. With them in the proceedings, a young woman, Champika, who testified on the Special Envoy show in 2019.

Up to 11,000 Sri Lankan children, like Maria and Champika, may have been sold to European families on the basis of false documents. The objective of the plaintiffs, adoptive parents or adopted children: that this child trafficking, whatever the country, cease.

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