Texas girl, missing for 12 years, rescued in Mexico

Doug Stanglin, USA TODAY1 minute agoFacebookTwitterGoogle Plusmore

Center for Exploited and Missing Children

Sabrina Allen, 4, was abducted from her Austin home in 2002.

Sabrina Allen, who was abducted in 2002 at age 4 by her non-custodial mother, has been found in a secret rescue mission near Mexico City and returned to the United States, the private investigator involved in the search said Wednesday.

Sabrina, now 17, was rescued in an operation conducted by the Mexican Federal Authority, FBI and U.S. Marshals in Estafeta Tlaxcala, about 60 miles southeast of Mexico City, according to Philip Klein, with KIC Investigations.

Klein told USA TODAY that Sabrina and her alleged abductor, Dara Llorens, were flown back to the U.S. on Tuesday night, arriving in Houston.

Llorens, who was wanted on a federal warrant on charges of aggravated kidnapping, interference with child custody, and unlawful flight to avoid prosecution, had been under surveillance for about two weeks by an informant working for investigators, Klein said.

Authorities moved in at 11:32 a.m., on Tuesday. One Mexican Federal Police officers sustained a minor injury during a struggle with Llorens, according to Klein.

Llorens was booked into Travis County Jail on a $300,000 bond.

The arrest warrant charges that Llorens "intentionally and knowingly abducted the child by restraining her so as to interfere substantially with her liberty, by moving her from one place to another."

Sabrina was undergoing medical evaluation at an undisclosed location and was not immediately reunited with her father, Greg Allen.

"I am overjoyed that Sabrina has been found alive and is safe," Allen said in a statement in which he also thanked the participants in the long search, KVUE reports.

"They never gave up," he said. "We look forward to being reunited very soon."

Sabrina had been listed as missing by theNational Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Llorens had disappeared to Mexico with the girl at the end of a six-month period of court-supervised visitation, according to the website FindSabrina.org.

Court documents obtained by KXAN show that Llorens fled the country with Sabrina after a judge ordered her to turn over her daughter by 6 p.m. on April 21, 2002.

The pair had been spotted once in 2003, but eluded capture. Both had apparently dyed their hair and were using false names.