A Chinese girl smuggled into Northern Virginia in 1998 disappeared from her Fairfax County foster home a few weeks later and has not been seen for more than 10 years.
Yuan Xia Wang was smuggled into the country through Washington Dulles International Airport in August 1998 and went missing after getting off her school bus one day that October, according to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and news accounts.
She was believed to be about age 12 at the time.
What happened to Wang still is unknown. Authorities said she might have been abducted by the group that brought her to the United States, run away or left with a relative.
Wang was caught being smuggled into the country at Dulles. Chaichana Klaharn, the man who brought her to the United States, pleaded guilty to using a forged or false passport in September 1998 and was sentenced to four months in prison, court records show.
Wang was sent to live with a Fairfax County foster family.
She was enrolled at Holmes Middle School and went missing after taking the bus home from school alone one afternoon.
In November 2008, the Kansas City Star reported that law enforcement officials believed Wang could have traveled from that area.
But it’s unclear whether Wang ever went there, NCMEC lawyer Preston Findlay told The Washington Examiner this week.
Findlay said Wang’s case has been entered into the NamUs system, which integrates missing and unidentified persons databases in hopes of solving cold cases.
Wang would be 24 now. She was described as about 5 feet 6 inches tall and 118 pounds. She has black hair and brown eyes.
Anyone with information about her case can call NCMEC at 800-843-5678.
