(#11) It's Almost Impossible To Prosecute This Insane Crime
Aside from the lack of political will to prosecute for the crime, it is incredibly hard to prove in court the illegality of the case. A prosecutor in Madrid pointed out a few of the biggest issues with trying to prove wrongdoing in a case of systemic kidnapping. First, you can't pursue a criminal case over a false birth certificate because the crime has passed the statute of limitations. And as far as the Spanish criminal justice system goes a false birth certificate doesn't legally prove that a baby has been kidnapped. As it stands the Spanish Catholic church's history of child kidnapping will go unpunished. The only thing that can be done is to remain vigilant against those in power.
(#6) The Catholic Church Was Selling Babies For A Long Time
When the regulated system for child theft was put into place in 1939 it likely wasn't designed to have an end game. Franco's regime either felt like they were doing the right thing, or they were just being malicious. Either way, when an oligarchy comes into power they don't have a back up plan. When Franco died in 1975 the church didn't rethink their position of rampant child theft, and they didn't rework the system that had caused so much pain. Instead, they dug in deeper into the social services system of Spain in an attempt to keep a stranglehold on the Spanish people.
It wasn't until the late '80s that the scandal was blown open when Juan Luis Moreno discovered that he was one Spain's stolen babies. According to Moreno, the man who he knew as his father confessed on his deathbed that Moreno had been purchased from a priest in Northern Spain for 200,000 pesetas.
(#1) The Accused Didn't Face Charges Until 2018
Even though victims Juan Luis Moreno and Antonio Barroso brought the issue to light in 2011, it wasn't until August 2018 that alleged perpetrators faced charges. Inés Madrigal, born in 1969 at San Ramon clinic in Madrid, claims a doctor kidnapped her and gave her away without her biological mother's permission. On August 14, 2018, her accused kidnapper, obstetrician Eduardo Vela, stood trial and denied the allegations, telling a three-judge panel that he "never gave a girl to anybody." In 2012, Madrigal's adoptive mother (who passed in 2016) told CNN Vela gave her the baby.
The judges charged Vela with the illegal detention of a minor and forging a public document. Prosecutors are pushing for an 11-year jail sentence. Vela still denies "stealing" Madrigal and is pursuing a full acquittal.
Over 2,000 people filed stolen children suits with prosecutors.
(#4) The Babies Were Sold To Well-To-Do Families
After the newborns were stolen from their mothers most of them were immediately sold to couples who held beliefs more inline with Franco's totalitarian and Catholic regime. These families didn't just have the "right" set of core beliefs - they were also wealthy. Or at the very least they had enough money to buy a child in post World War II Spain. It's likely that the adoptive parents weren't aware that they were buying a child that had been stolen from its mother hours before, and many of the parents actually had their names placed on the child's birth certificate. Allegedly the families were either led to believe that the infant's mother had died in child birth or that the parents had given them up.
(#5) This Wasn't A Small Time Operation
It may seem like it would be tough to carry out a country-wide, state-sanctioned, web of church backed kidnapping; but that's where you're wrong. These kidnappings started directly after the end of the Spanish Civil War in 1939, continued through World War II, and didn't end until the early '90s. Spain may be a relatively small country but it must have been noticeable to someone that children were disappearing at an alarming rate. Maybe people who brought up the numbers were squashed by the local government, or it's possible that the Franco's regime simply didn't care if they were called out on their horrible crimes. Whatever the case many people believe that this web of Catholic kidnapping accounted for 15% of the total adoptions that took place in Spain between 1960 and 1989.
(#9) The Payment Plan
In many cases even when a family could afford to buy a child they couldn't pay for it all up front so a payment plan was established. When Juan Luis Moreno's father confessed on his deathbed that Moreno had been purchased from a priest he realized that his annual family trips to Zaragoza weren't vacations - they were a contractual obligation. Moreno told the BBC that his adoptive father knew exactly what he was doing and that the church didn't even try to hide its scam. "My dad was given a choice: boy or girl. They put it bluntly: This was a market for babies." Moreno said that his adoptive father claims that the going price for a child at the time was twice the price of their family home.
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Since the 1940s, a “massive baby theft case” has erupted in Spain. The Franco dictatorship has conspired with the Catholic group to systematically kidnap and sell a large number of newborn babies. After Franco's death, this profit-driven human trafficking system still operated until the end of the 1980s. These abducted children are called "Spanish orphans."
According to incomplete statistics, a total of nearly 300,000 people were trafficked at the time. The Spanish government has always regarded this crime as "forbidden", and only in recent years has it begun to recognize some victims. The random tool introduced 11 details about the Catholic Church stolen more than 300,000 babies.
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