A new documentary highlighting the potentially unethical practices used in adoptions will explore again whether Angelina Jolie’s son may have been stolen from his biological family.
It was in 2002 when Jolie adopted Maddox from Cambodia with the help of adoption agent Lauryn Galindo.
But in 2004, Galindo was jailed for ‘falsifying documents to obtain US visas for orphans.’
Filmmaker Elizabeth Jacobs, whose parents also sought Galindo’s help to arrange their adoption from Cambodia, will explore again the claim that ‘poor Cambodian families are preyed on by baby recruiters’ in an upcoming documentary, The Stolen Children.
According to The Sun, Jacobs is determined to uncover the truth about the adoptions processed by Galindo.
Between 1997 and 2001, half of the adoptions to the US from Cambodia went through Galindo and her sister Lynn Devin as they ran an adoption agency called Seattle International Adoptions.
But shortly after Jolie adopted Maddox, Devin and Galindo faced criminal charges.
Galindo was jailed for falsifying names, places of birth and birthdays of children she helped to place with US families two years after the actress and her ex-husband Billy Bob Thronton took full custody of Maddox.
As soon as the scandal was exposed, the U.S. and other countries shut down adoptions from Cambodia.
Jolie said she knew nothing of the illegal trade and said she went to “great lengths to ensure Maddox did not have a living birth-mother in Cambodia” as she would “never rob a mother of her child.”
In a statement to The Sun, Galindo said that she would answer any questions Jacobs may have.
She also hailed herself as ‘a champion of children’ as she denied that any of her practices had ever been illegal.
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