A MAN finally was reunited with his parents 20 years after he was abducted, the Shenzhen Special Zone Daily reported.

The boy’s mother, identified by the pseudonym Wang Hua, said that she can still remember that afternoon when her 5-month-old boy, Xiaojun, was taken away by a man who was pretending to be interested in renting her apartment.

“I took the man to the second floor to see the apartment and when we got downstairs, my kid had gone missing,” said Wang.

The couple immediately reported the case to Kengzi Police Station in Pingshan. Although the police went to the scene as soon as they received the call, the investigation stalled due to the lack of surveillance cameras and eyewitnesses.

However, the police never stopped searching, according to Wang Wei, deputy director of Kengzi Police Station. Thanks to their unremitting efforts, the police finally arrested the suspect surnamed Zhou in Urumqi, capital of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, in May last year.

The police also confirmed that Zhou and his accomplices had cooperated to steal Xiaojun and sold him to a couple in Danshui Subdistrict in Huiyang, Huizhou City, in 1999 for 10,000 yuan (US$1,454).

Although the suspects had been caught, there was still no trace of Xiaojun, according to the police.

Fortunately, the police finally located the man by comparing Xiaojun’s photos with pictures stored in the Guangdong and Shenzhen image systems using advanced cross-age facial recognition technology. A DNA test proved that the man was the missing Xiaojun.

Xiaojun has been living with his foster parents ever since he was abducted. He said that he is grateful for the effort his biological parents put into searching for him and the care he received from his foster parents over the last 20 years.  (Wang Jingli)