Inside America’s Adoption Fraud Industry

In the age of 'Instagram adoptions', sophisticated con artists are defrauding prospective parents of large sums of money by digitally posing as viable birth mothers. With the scope of this fraudulent industry only just emerging, Sarah Green speaks to victims of the burgeoning crime, and those who are fighting it in the dark.

Christmas Day 2021 should have been one of the happiest of Breanne Paquin’s life. After almost a decade of disheartening doctor visits and diagnoses, Paquin and her husband boarded a last-minute flight from Cleveland, Ohio to Houston, Texas for what they thought was their Christmas miracle.

The hopeful couple were expecting a baby boy, and they were flying almost 1,300 miles to meet him. Leading up to their trip, Paquin had been in near-constant communication with a pregnant woman named Ingrid Hernandez — their online relationship developed through daily good morning and good night texts, picture updates, video messages and FaceTime calls, along with an expectant promise that grew with each passing day.

Five months prior, Hernandez had promised the Paquins her unborn baby boy via social media. In the months that followed, they had spent dozens of hours and thousands of dollars perfecting every detail for his homecoming — from building and furnishing his nursery, to stocking frozen breastmilk and baby supplies.

The young couple never could have predicted the trauma that waited for them in Texas. Instead of spending their Christmas with Hernandez in a hospital delivery room, the Paquins found themselves in an emergency meeting with their lawyer on a deserted restaurant patio.

'All I can remember is our lawyer sitting us down and opening with, "I think this is a scam. I’m so sorry." Something in me broke, because deep down I knew he was right,' Paquin recalls.

This critical moment was the first revelation in a months-long arrangement that turned out to be riddled with false promises and fraudulent transactions. The Paquins didn’t know it yet, but they were the victims of adoption fraud — a burgeoning industry within the United States’ private domestic adoption sector.

Hernandez’s deception is staggering, but not uncommon. America's public adoption industry is not the same as the UK's. The current state of the American adoption system with its high infant price tags, years-long wait times and frequent lack of autonomy has prompted thousands of couples to look to other avenues, such as social media, to take matters into their own hands. And in America, privately-handled adoption is not outlawed as it is in other countries. Sadly, this unprecedented shift towards a federally unregulated industry has created the perfect breeding ground for scammers to exploit an emerging, vulnerable population — hopeful adoptive parents.

Paquin’s adoption journey began long before she matched with Hernandez. 'I’ve always dreamt of having a baby of my own.' she says over Zoom, 'When my little brother was born, I saw the hospital nursery and begged my mom to help me build one for all my dolls.'

Her dream didn’t die when she was diagnosed with endometriosis at 19, nor when she suffered with several chronic health problems early in her marriage. After getting a hysterectomy last year, her definition of motherhood took on a whole new meaning — one that eventually led her to adoption.

Like a growing number of infertile American couples, the Paquins discovered private adoption through TikTok. In the recently coined era of ‘social media adoptions’, they represent a significant trend of prospective parents and birth mothers locating each other independently, with little or no professional assistance.

This shift, while drastic, isn't unprecedented. Initially, it was triggered by the steep decline in available babies within the United States’ public sector. In total, only 18,300 babies are voluntarily relinquished for adoption annually, yet over a million American families hope to adopt each year — this translates to 55 families vying for each adoptable infant. No one centrally tracks private adoptions in the United States, but best estimates from the Donaldson Adoption Institute and the National Council for Adoption suggest public agencies are involved in approximately 1,000 of all annual adoptions, meaning the vast majority of domestic infant adoptions occur in the private sector where, among other issues, there is no airtight way of policing money changing hands.

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By contrast, there are more than 100,000 children and youth are available for public adoption within the foster care system at any given time in the US, but couples tend to prefer adoptees who are 'as young as possible.'

'One of the major fallacies adoptive parents believe is that adoption equals babies,' Adam Pertman, founder of the National Center on Adoption and Permanency (NCAP), explains. And as a result of this yearning for nascent adoptees: 'Infant adoption is being commodified. Anytime you put dollar signs and human beings in the same sentence, it’s a formula for disaster.'

As more and more people turn to private adoption in the age of technology, it was only a matter of time before the phenomenon made its way to social media. And in 2022, adoption ads have sprung up all over Instagram and TikTok, featuring strategic hashtags and polished profiles of eager couples promoting themselves as the perfect parents of any available doe-eyed newborn. The Paquins were no exception.

Every detail in their sponsored post was carefully planned and perfected — from the tasteful serif font showcasing their welcome message, to the wholesome couple photo featuring Paquin holding a mug that says: 'be kind.' Their heartfelt caption is decorated with colourful emojis and reassuring sentiments that detail the promise they’re making to the birth mother, as well as the type of life they want to raise their child in.

Before connecting with Hernandez, Paquin was at least partially aware of the risks of resorting to social media to find a baby. She had heard stories of women using stolen pregnancy pictures and forged ultrasounds to contact people who were hoping to adopt. But in all the cases she came across, no money was exchanged.

'In terms of what we went through, I never thought an adoption scam could go that far,' she says. 'I assumed that we were protected, so I wasn't prepared for it at all.'

Three months into their self-promotion plan, Paquin woke up to a message request from a 31-year-old woman who was looking to place her unborn baby for adoption — the woman’s name was Ingrid Hernandez. Hernandez explained she’d come across their adoption advertisements through various hashtags and was hoping to see if they would be a good fit.

By this point, Hernandez was nearly five months pregnant and insisted that her reasoning for giving up her baby wasn’t financial. After running a background check and obtaining proof of pregnancy, Paquin and Hernandez formed not only an arrangement, but an apparent friendship. The highlight of Paquin’s day was receiving ultrasound pictures and videos of Hernandez’s belly moving. She replied with pictures of her growing nursery, along with the new bookshelf she was stocking for her baby boy.

'She kept telling me that she had zero second-thoughts about giving us her baby,' says Paquin, and would ask us questions like, "Do you want him circumcised? Do you want him to get his vaccines right when he's born?"'

Even though Paquin was the main point of contact during their five-month relationship, her husband, Greg Paquin, was equally invested in the pregnancy process.

'Based on common sense, I knew the risks involved with the path that we were going down, but Breanne and [Ingrid] were talking like best friends all the time. The messages that I saw between them, it just blew my mind,' Paquin explains.

adoption scams america

MARINA PETTI

Very early in their communications with Hernandez, the Paquins realised they couldn’t navigate this process on their own. Hernandez claimed she didn't know how adoption worked, so the couple suggested they hire a lawyer and go from there. Within two days, they were on the phone with Ed Lee.

Lee is a Houston-based family attorney who represented the Paquins during the entirety of their relationship with Hernandez. As a sole practitioner who recently retired from big law, he prides himself on caring more for his clients than the 'numbers game' of billable hours and flat fees. His small home office resides in a leafy Houston suburb, and his cramped desk is barely visible beneath a massive folder that acts as an appropriate centrepiece.

'My file folder is 24 inches wide and holds all of my active cases,' he says, heaving it into view. 'It’s completely full right now — if I can't fit another case into it, then I know that I've got one too many clients.'

In his first few meetings with the Paquins, Lee explained that it’s common for adoptive parents to pay the expectant mother’s medical bills. However, birth mothers aren’t allowed to profit from the adoption process, meaning they can only receive payments for expenses that aren’t already covered by their health insurance.

At the end of August, Hernandez started presenting doctor’s bills totalling around $10,000 (£8,000), saying that she needed the money immediately. In this case, Lee says there were significant warning signs from the very beginning.

'From the first moment that I got on the phone with Breanne and Greg, I explained all the potential pitfalls and I said: "Here are the red flags that I'm going to be looking for",' he explains. 'Every one of those red flags were flying, but Breanne would resolve it with [Ingrid] and we'd move forward.'

From Paquin’s perspective, she and Hernandez were forging a lifelong friendship — the thought of fraud was the furthest thing from her mind.

'I thought Ed was only raising red flags because that's his job. I understood where he was coming from, but I knew [Ingrid] — I had been talking to her every day, so I believed every word she was saying,' she says.

The first major red flag Lee identified was Hernandez’s refusal to sign a Health, Social, Educational and Genetic History (HSEGH) report. This legal document details all the necessary information about the birth parents’ backgrounds, as well as the baby’s history and needs.

'I needed to collect names, addresses, educational history, criminal history and social history, but everything was left blank including traumas, medical examinations, dental history and genetic information concerning the biological mother and father,' Lee explains. 'I could never get [Ingrid] to work with me on this.'

In his various conversations with Hernandez, Lee learned that she worked in the medical billing department at Memorial Hermann Hospital in Houston — the same hospital his wife is a registered nurse at.

'When my wife looked up ‘Ingrid Hernandez’ in the employee directory, there was no record of her anywhere,' he says.

The red flags didn’t end there. Hernandez also refused to sign a Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) authorisation form which would allow the Paquins to pay her medical expenses to the facilities directly, rather than personally reimbursing her. Lee was wary of the mobile payments Paquin was sending Hernandez, and told her he needed to see every receipt and proof of payment.

Lee later discovered in conversations with Hernandez’s family that she was on Medicaid, a form of low-income health insurance, for the entirety of her pregnancy. This meant that all her medical expenses were paid for, and that any additional invoices she personally sent to the Paquins were fraudulent.

'The punchline is that Ingrid really was pregnant, but she was double dipping the entire time,' says Lee. 'It all comes down to the core issue of, "Is this a birth mom who had second thoughts?" With Ingrid, this clearly wasn’t the case because there was outright and absolute fraud at every step of the way.'

This then begs the question — how did Hernandez, and thousands of others, manage to get away with it?

Some 1,300 miles away in Detroit, Michigan, two FBI investigators are wrestling with a similar question, but on a much larger scale. Nestled in a small office in the city’s sprawling headquarters, special agent Matthew Sluss and intelligence analyst Nishawn Spiller make up part of the eight-person unit that represents the small, but significant resistance against this burgeoning crime.

Right off the bat, Sluss asks how the topic of adoption fraud has reached the UK, a country where private adoption is illegal. The simple answer: social media.

While the impact of adoption fraud may be far-reaching, the scale of it has yet to be quantified. Currently, there are no publicly available statistics on the prevalence of this crime — even this core team of FBI investigators is not aware of any internal figures, making it a fight in the dark. Sluss and Spiller only have the resources to investigate adoption fraud on a case-by-case basis, which makes their job a great deal more challenging.

'I would assess that adoption fraud is as prevalent as any other financial crime,' says Spiller. 'There are elements of shame and hurt that prevent victims from coming forward which makes this threat greatly underreported.'

'Even on a state level, the scale is not something we would be able to quantify,' Sluss continues. 'It does still appear to be a very underreported crime, and I would not want to estimate figures.'

Adoption scams are not an entirely unfamiliar concept to the FBI, but social media has allowed this type of criminal activity to transcend state borders, meaning whatever legal or procedural safeguards a state imposes, the internet can render them meaningless. This makes it nearly impossible for victims to pursue legal action.

Even with these challenges, though, Sluss and Spiller are responsible for locking up the most notorious adoption scammer in modern-day history. Tara Lee defrauded 160 couples in 24 states of $2.1m (£1.7m) during her four-year fraudulent scheme that matched adoptive parents with birth mothers who were either non-existent, not pregnant or uninterested in adoption. As a result of their renowned investigation, Lee was sentenced to more than 10 years in prison in 2019.

'The unique thing about this sentencing was the number of victims that chose to come forward and make a statement,' says Sluss. 'Tara’s hearing served as an opportunity for victims to be heard, and it represented a step of healing for many people.'

The FBI’s investigation made headlines across the globe, raising awareness on the reach of this ever-evolving crime. Spiller only hopes this awareness will gain momentum with time.

'I have a family so I often put myself in the situations the victims are in,' says Spiller. 'That is what keeps me/us going.'

This tight-knit FBI unit isn't alone in their efforts to put adoption scammers behind bars. Four states down the map in Athens, Georgia, Juli Wisotsky, along with several other adoption attorneys, passed a new state law in July 2021 which acted as a monumental step in adoption fraud law reform. Broken down, the amendment not only makes adoption fraud illegal, but adoption deception illegal.

'Previously, the law said: "If someone took money from you for adoption fraud purposes, they could be prosecuted in the criminal court."' Wisotsky explains. 'Now, it says: "If someone allows you to expend money on reasonable reliance of a false adoption plan, it’s a prosecutable offence."'

Wisotsky has significant personal stakes in this legal milestone. She labels herself as an 'unfortunate expert' on Gabby Watson, an infamous Georgia-based emotional scammer whose schemes have upended the lives of more than 2,300 adoptive couples. Over the years, Watson has built hundreds of fabricated identities and alter egos, allowing her to engage in months-long charades where she promises hopeful couples a baby. Yet unlike Hernandez or Lee, Watson has never asked for money — her currency is undivided time and attention.

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At least 25 of Watson’s victims have passed through Wisotsky’s small attorney group over the past five years. One of her former clients is Erika Celeste, the journalist who wrote the viral Insider article documenting her experience of being roped into one of Watson’s elaborate scams. Celeste’s story is just one of thousands, yet her platform allows it to resonate.

'I was never one of Gabby’s victims,' says Celeste. 'From the beginning, I knew she wasn’t legitimate and I realised that she had targeted me. I kept asking myself, "What does she want?" As a journalist, I could tell that there was something more to this.'

She continues: 'Gabby told me very clearly that she likes to scam people — she bragged that she scams four to five people a week. All she wants is constant emotional validation to fill the vacancy in her heart.'

It had never occurred to Celeste to Google ‘adoption scams’. If she had, she would’ve found Jessica Simmons' Facebook page, Ending Adoption Scams, much sooner. Simmons created the page in 2019 to track Watson’s scamming attempts after she and her husband fell victim to one of her ploys. Since then, her group has welcomed thousands of members across the country who all share the same goal — to put an end to adoption fraud in America.

Simmons’ page features hundreds, if not thousands, of due diligence checks including: 'Is anyone talking to Brandi from Nevada? Baby girl due June 22nd,' and: 'Beware of Tiffany in South Carolina. She claims she’s due in November, but we have now learned that she stole pictures from an Instagram page of someone with the same name.'

With the concerning lack of statistics on the prevalence of adoption fraud, Ending Adoption Scams’ ever-growing list of known scammers has become an invaluable resource for countless prospective parents.

'Adoption fraud is only continuing because people don’t know about it,' Simmons explains. 'I feel very grateful that people trust me to be a sounding board in this capacity.'

Unfortunately for the Paquins, Hernandez’s name wasn’t on the list. Her history is a complex one — it’s peppered with personal feuds and legal charges that have left even those closest to her second-guessing the type of person she is.

Her online presence remains a mystery aside from her Fort Bend County mugshot. Her tired eyes and dishevelled appearance are a stark contrast from the young mother the Paquins thought they knew. In April 2021, Hernandez was charged with a DWI (driving while intoxicated) — she was pregnant with her third child at the time, yet it would be over three months until she contacted the Paquins, placing her unborn baby for adoption.

adoption scams america

MARINA PETTI

A month into their relationship, Paquin suggested she and her husband fly to Texas to meet her in person. Hernandez supported the idea at first, but right after Paquin confirmed a date in early October, she backed out, claiming she was diagnosed with placenta previa and was on bedrest. Her diagnosis meant she needed a scheduled C-section — the date was set for 9 December.

Hernandez’s due date came as welcome news to the couple. They bought plane tickets for early December and booked a hotel and a rental car. Yet, a week before her scheduled induction day, her placenta previa cleared, meaning she was able to have a natural birth after all.

'By continually pushing her due date back, Ingrid was getting more money with each passing day,' says Lee.

On 17 December, Hernandez had an emergency doctor’s appointment because her blood pressure was abnormally high — a new induction date was scheduled for 28 December. By the time Christmas Eve rolled around, Hernandez was sending Paquin sporadic text messages, saying she felt anxious about the pregnancy.

'I kept asking her, "Are you having any second thoughts?" But she kept saying she was fine and that she was excited to meet us. So that’s what got us on the plane,' Paquin recalls.

Not long after the couple touched down in Texas, things took a turn for the worse. Paquin was greeted with several frantic messages from Hernandez claiming her mom was suffering from severe chest pain and needed urgent open-heart surgery.

'The whole time, I couldn’t believe what was happening,” says Paquin. 'By this point, [Ingrid] was hardly texting me, so I had no idea what was going on with the induction. But deep down, I knew.'

This fateful realisation haunted the couple as they drove in silence to meet Lee at a local patio.

'The moment when it all came crashing down was when the three of us were sitting at a restaurant having breakfast,' Lee recalls. 'I managed to find Ingrid’s last known address in Sugar Land, Texas. We reviewed it at the breakfast table, and I suggested that Greg and I head out there to see what we could find out.'

By this point, Paquin was inconsolable. Lee warned her that the confrontation might get heated and emotional, and he recommended she head back to their hotel. Alone with her thoughts, Paquin couldn’t help but beg Hernandez for some clarity.

'I remember texting her something like, "Everyone's saying this is a scam. I don't know what to believe anymore. Can you please prove that you’re actually pregnant and your mom is truly in the hospital?"' she says.

Paquin continues: 'She FaceTimed me, saying she was in a hospital bathroom, but I could tell that she was lying. After that call, she texted me, "I'm tired of everyone thinking that this is a scam. I'm going to keep the baby so no one's involved." And that was it.'

Exhausted and alone, Paquin resorted to booking last-minute flights home as she waited for her husband to return with some answers.

The 45-minute drive to Sugar Land, Texas was not a pleasant one. In tandem, Paquin and Lee drove silently down a dusty country road, until, finally, they reached Hernandez’s last-known address. A rickety mailbox signposts the shared property that houses two bungalows and various outbuildings that are scattered with American flags and pickup trucks.

Lee was the first to arrive.

'There was an older man and woman out front. I said: "Hey, does Ingrid Hernandez live here? I'm working with a family who’s trying to adopt her baby,"' says Lee. 'The woman replied: "We don't know anything about that." So I said: "Do you know anything about Ingrid’s mother’s open-heart surgery?" And she replied: "Ingrid’s mom lives right over there. We just saw her yesterday — she’s in perfect health."'

By this time, Paquin had also pulled up.

'It was so surreal because [Ingrid’s] family was learning about the extent of her scam as we were asking them questions. They were shocked, but not surprised,' Paquin recalls. 'It got very emotional — they were crying and I was tearing up.'

After talking for over an hour, Paquin and Lee pieced together that Hernandez had allegedly given birth to her baby boy more than three weeks prior, on December 6, and hadn’t mentioned her adoption plans to anyone.

Armed with more questions than answers, they made their way back to Paquin’s rental car to debrief.

'Greg was struggling — he was really, really hurting at this point,' says Lee. 'It was very tough sitting in the front seat of that rental car with him. As a dad myself, I reached over and just held him for a minute.'

Since this confrontation, Lee has worked pro bono to bring Ingrid to justice. He has gathered and submitted every shred of evidence, including text messages, medical invoices and fraudulent transactions to the FBI and the DA's office, yet he hasn’t heard anything — and he doesn’t know if he ever will.

On a civil level, Lee is a lot more confident they could successfully sue Hernandez for fraud. Yet after numerous extensive phone calls with the Paquins, Lee explained that even if they won, the emotional toll wouldn’t be worth the limited payoff.

'Ingrid has gotten away with it to a certain degree,' he says.

Nearly six months after the adoption unravelled, Hernandez replied to an interview request with a one-word email: 'Yes.' Her emails were nothing short of cryptic, but over 10 exchanges later, she agreed to meet via Zoom. Almost unsurprisingly, Hernandez didn’t show. Since then, she has refused to respond to any of the allegations.

Hernandez’s silence leaves several big questions unanswered — while there is evidence she committed fraud, only she knows whether this was a premeditated scam or not.

Several shots in the dark later, three members of Hernandez’s removed family shared their opinion on the alleged scam via Facebook Messenger.

Esmerelda Melton, Hernandez’s removed aunt, is the only person who agreed to be interviewed. 'I wouldn’t put an adoption scam past [Ingrid]. She’s been chasing money her whole life,' she explains via Zoom. 'When Ed and Greg came to our house, I said: "She's really done herself in now."'

Melton is one of several sources who can confirm that Hernandez was on Medicaid during the entirety of her pregnancy. OakBend Medical Center also provided confirmation that Medicaid paid for all of Hernandez’s expenses that were billed through their facility, though Hernandez continued to invoice the Paquins the full amounts.

Melton paints a rather sad picture of Hernandez, explaining that she’s been down on her luck for most of her life. When Hernandez found out that she was pregnant with her baby boy after getting arrested last April, things reached a breaking point.

'None of her life circumstances gave her the permission to rob a couple of their savings,' she agrees though. 'I met Greg when he came to our house — all I could do was tell him that I was sorry.'

For the Paquins, coming home to an empty nursery was the hardest thing they’ve ever done. They couldn’t bring themselves to pack up the ready-made cot or the various stuffed animals and bedtime stories they had set up for their baby boy’s return. The grief hit Paquin two-fold — not only did she lose a baby, she felt she had lost a friend.

'I don't know if I'll ever be able to forgive [Ingrid]. She took so much from me,' says Paquin. 'It’s not even about the baby because I’ve always respected [Ingrid’s] right to change her mind. It really comes down to the deceit and the manipulation of someone who I thought was going to be a lifelong friend.'

The young couple still hasn’t given up on their dream of becoming parents, but they have given up on the private adoption process. Coming full circle, Paquin’s adoption journey began and ended with TikTok. Ever since she matched with Hernandez in August 2021, her account has acted as a digital diary of bringing her baby boy home. She never could have imagined that over 500,000 people would follow her story.

'When everything fell apart, how could I not have said something?' she says. 'My story is showing the world that adoption fraud is not only real, it’s thriving.'

On 2 January, 2022, Paquin posted her first viral TikTok. Staring directly into the camera, she opens with: 'Honestly, I’m not even sure where to begin. My husband and I are victims of adoption fraud.' This video marked the beginning of another journey for Paquin — one that she hopes will reverse some of the damage done by fraudulent social media presences and spare others the pain she and her husband have had to endure.

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