Dian
01-08-2004, 09:20 AM
Honolulu Star-Bulletin
Wednesday, January 7, 2004
Baby adoptions draw
charges of visa fraud
A Hanalei resident has been running an
agency for adopting Cambodian children
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By Anthony Sommer
tsommer@starbulletin.com
LIHUE >> Hanalei resident Lauren Galindo was scheduled to surrender to
federal authorities in Seattle today on charges of visa fraud and
conspiracy to commit visa fraud involving Cambodian children whose
mothers allegedly had sold them to Galindo.
The adoptive parents for whom Galindo worked claimed in the visa
applications that the children had no living relatives. In many cases,
the adoptive parents had actually met with the birth mothers, the federal
indictment alleges.
Galindo is considered the largest and most successful operator of several
adoption agencies that provide Cambodian children to adoptive parents.
She has been operating her adoption agency since at least 1990 and has
provided hundreds of children to adoptive parents.
"When people ask me what I do, I don't say adoptions," she said in a
lengthy interview with the English language newspaper The Cambodia Daily.
"I say humanitarian work."
"I didn't come here to steal children of the nation," she said in the
interview. "I came here to do what I could to help."
But while she has been given awards by the Cambodian government, she has
been criticized by advocacy groups in Cambodia for buying babies for as
little as $100 and selling them to American couples.
Her typical fee to the adoptive parents is about $9,000, she said in the
Cambodian newspaper interview.
Galindo, 52, lives in a house on Wecke Road, which runs along the beach
in Hanalei, and is one of the most expensive and exclusive neighborhoods
in Hawaii. A check of county tax records showed she does not own the
house, however. The tax bills go to a Boulder, Colo., attorney.
Her most famous customers were actress Angelina Jolie who, with
ex-husband Billy Bob Thornton, used her agency to adopt a Cambodian boy.
Less famous are hundreds of couples on Kauai and throughout Hawaii who
adopted children through Galindo, who was raised in Hawaii.
Galindo said when the United States placed a ban on issuing visas to
Cambodian children two years ago, 114 of her customers "were left in the
lurch."
Galindo's sister, Lynn Devin, who operated their Seattle office, Seattle
International Adoptions Inc., already has pleaded guilty to falsifying
documents in order to obtain visas for Cambodian children. She will be
sentenced March 15.
Wednesday, January 7, 2004
Baby adoptions draw
charges of visa fraud
A Hanalei resident has been running an
agency for adopting Cambodian children
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By Anthony Sommer
tsommer@starbulletin.com
LIHUE >> Hanalei resident Lauren Galindo was scheduled to surrender to
federal authorities in Seattle today on charges of visa fraud and
conspiracy to commit visa fraud involving Cambodian children whose
mothers allegedly had sold them to Galindo.
The adoptive parents for whom Galindo worked claimed in the visa
applications that the children had no living relatives. In many cases,
the adoptive parents had actually met with the birth mothers, the federal
indictment alleges.
Galindo is considered the largest and most successful operator of several
adoption agencies that provide Cambodian children to adoptive parents.
She has been operating her adoption agency since at least 1990 and has
provided hundreds of children to adoptive parents.
"When people ask me what I do, I don't say adoptions," she said in a
lengthy interview with the English language newspaper The Cambodia Daily.
"I say humanitarian work."
"I didn't come here to steal children of the nation," she said in the
interview. "I came here to do what I could to help."
But while she has been given awards by the Cambodian government, she has
been criticized by advocacy groups in Cambodia for buying babies for as
little as $100 and selling them to American couples.
Her typical fee to the adoptive parents is about $9,000, she said in the
Cambodian newspaper interview.
Galindo, 52, lives in a house on Wecke Road, which runs along the beach
in Hanalei, and is one of the most expensive and exclusive neighborhoods
in Hawaii. A check of county tax records showed she does not own the
house, however. The tax bills go to a Boulder, Colo., attorney.
Her most famous customers were actress Angelina Jolie who, with
ex-husband Billy Bob Thornton, used her agency to adopt a Cambodian boy.
Less famous are hundreds of couples on Kauai and throughout Hawaii who
adopted children through Galindo, who was raised in Hawaii.
Galindo said when the United States placed a ban on issuing visas to
Cambodian children two years ago, 114 of her customers "were left in the
lurch."
Galindo's sister, Lynn Devin, who operated their Seattle office, Seattle
International Adoptions Inc., already has pleaded guilty to falsifying
documents in order to obtain visas for Cambodian children. She will be
sentenced March 15.
