Barbara, duped without a trace, still finds her real mother

39-year-old Barbara Quee, one of the victims to whom 'Spoorloos' linked the wrong Colombian parents, has found her biological mother. "She thought I had died," she tells the 'Algemeen Dagblad'.

"She always thought I died shortly after birth"

Born in Colombia, Barbara was adopted in 1984 by a Dutch couple. Because Barbara wants to know more about her past, she registers for the Spoorloos program in 2005 in the hope of finding her biological parents. Her mother is found by the Colombian fixer (and, as it turns out, con artist) Edwin Vela, who has been matching adopted people with the wrong biological parents for years.

During the broadcast she is told that her mother cannot go public because she is in hiding from the police. "That would have to do with her identity, which would be used for criminal purposes," Barbara looks back. "A story in which I had many questions. Why was Spoorloos able to find her and the police could not?"

The program promises her to go after two brothers, but it remains silent. When Barbara meets another adopted boy in 2008, she decides to start a new search through Edwin Vela, to whom she has to transfer money each time. "It felt like a second chance. I asked Spoorloos for support, but that ultimately did nothing," Barbara continues her story.

Barbara therefore decides to set up her own research agency, the Buscas Tu Familia En Colombia foundation, together with her friend Fiona Teggatz. Together they then uncover another incorrect match, that of Kristian van der Mark. He too is one day linked to a mother and a half-brother, who turns out not to be a brother twenty years later. Together with journalist Kees van der Spek, they reveal even more stories of Dutch people in Colombia who are not linked to the correct biological parents in the broadcast of Scammers tackled last October.

Meanwhile, Barbara's search for her real biological mother continues. Shortly after the now infamous broadcast of Scammers tackled , Spoorloos offers her the opportunity to donate her DNA for the database My Ancestry. With success: on November 10, she receives the message that a match has been found with that of a brother in Colombia. "A complete surprise. I was so happy. A day later we were already emailing," says Barbara.

Her brother turns out to have an adoption file with their mother's identity documents and with those papers their biological mother was quickly found. Recently, a DNA test has confirmed that Barbara has indeed found her real mother and the two do some video calling. "I definitely plan to visit my brother and mother in Colombia. I have heard parts of her story. She has always thought that I died shortly after birth. So it is all very intense for her," she says in the AD .