Thread: Missing Texas teen found living on Tijuana streets

http://www.signonsandiego.com

Missing Texas teen found living on Tijuana streets


UNION-TRIBUNE BREAKING NEWS TEAM

7:19 a.m. February 15, 2006

SAN DIEGO – A Texas teenager missing for three years has been reunited with her family after Mexican authorities found her living on the streets in Tijuana, the FBI has announced.

Chelsea Castorena was 15 when she was thought to have run away from her Austin home in February 2003. Investigators later learned she had been lured across the border into Mexico, said FBI spokeswoman Jan Caldwell.

Acting on anonymous tips from Texas, the FBI's San Diego office contacted Mexican police and immigration officers, who found Castorena, now 18, and took her to the border, where her family was waiting, Caldwell said.

“Without the assistance of these Mexican law enforcement agencies, it is very likely that Castorena would still be missing,â€

http://www.10news.com


Teen Back With Mom After Being Lured To Tijuana
Texas Teen Had Been Missing Since 2003

POSTED: 7:10 am PST February 15, 2006
UPDATED: 4:07 pm PST February 15, 2006

SAN DIEGO -- An 18-year-old girl is back with her mother in San Diego tonight after she was lured into a life on the streets of Tijuana three years ago.

Her story may be a warning about the growing trend of commercial sexual exploitation.

Chelsea Castorena and her mother saw each other for the first time Wednesday morning in San Diego. They enjoyed breakfast and made plans to return to Austin, Texas -- the place where Castorena was lured by false promises into three years of misery.

Castorena was only 15 years old when she disappeared. She was a freshman at Anderson High School in Austin.

"I knew she was saying, 'I'm going to leave. I'm gonna leave.' I said 'Chelsea, where are you gonna go?' I didn't know it was Mexico," said classmate Andrea Brickhouse.

Reported missing in February 2003, at first she was considered a runaway. Then a more sinister plot was revealed.

"I think Chelsea probably lived a lot of lives in the last three years," said Jan Caldwell, with the FBI.

According to the FBI, Castorena was lured to Tijuana then wound up living on the streets.

Mexican police found her after several anonymous tips this week.

The FBI is investigating exactly what happened to Castorena.

Marisa Ugarte, an advocate for Victims of Commercial Sexual Exploitation and Trafficking, says girls in the U.S. are lured to Mexico more often than people think.

"If you think a psychologist is good, the recruiter is even better. Most recruiters are not men, they're women or children -- girls saying, 'Look at me, how much money I have,' (and they) show them a stack of dollars," said Ugarte.

Ugarte said an increase in sexual tourism in Mexico and San Diego is boosting demand for sex slaves.

The teens are promised apartments and designer clothes, only to end up in cheap motels, guarded, beaten and used.

"Can you imagine the internal damage being done to them, when you are being pimped out to 10, 20, men a night (and) a rape every day?" asked Ugarte.

Castorena is fortunate to be off the streets and back with her mother, getting the care she needs.

"She's had a good night's sleep (and) some food (and) is rested. (She was) reunited with (her) mom this morning (and) they are planning to return to Austin. (It's a) story with a happy ending," said Caldwell.

The FBI is not commenting on how Castorena survived in Tijuana.

They are investigating this as a crime against a child.

Ugarte said the missing children are often hard to find because the traffickers move them in a sex circuit -- from Tijuana, to San Diego, Los Angeles, up to Seattle to Las Vegas and then back to Tijuana again.