Chinese man finds kidnapped son after 24 years of searching
A Chinese man has found his kidnapped son after 24 years of searching for him for more than 500,000 km on a motorcycle across the country.
Guo Gangtang's son was kidnapped by human traffickers when he was two years old in front of their home in Shandong Province.
The story of his son's kidnapping was the inspiration for a 2015 film starring Hong Kong star Andy Lau.
According to the Chinese Ministry of Public Security, the police were able to trace and identify his son using a DNA test.
According to a report by the Global Times, two suspects were later tracked down and arrested, according to the Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Anbaa.
A report by the official China News Network said that the two suspects, a man and a woman, were planning to kidnap a child with the intention of selling him for money.
After they saw Guo's son playing alone outside his house, the suspect, surnamed "Tang", grabbed him and took him to the bus station, where her partner, "Hu", was waiting.
The kidnappers then took a bus to the neighboring province of Henan and sold the child there.
Local media reports say that Guo's son was found in the same county, where he still lived.
"Now that the baby has been found, everything can be beautiful and joyful only from now on," Guo told reporters.
It is reported that after his son was kidnapped in 1997, Guo traveled to more than 20 counties across the country on a motorbike to search for his son.
During the search, Guo sustained broken bones in traffic accidents, and encountered highway robbers more than once.
And consumed ten motorcycles during the years of research.
During the search, he carried banners with a picture of his son, and it is said that he spent all his savings on the research mission, and he used to sleep under bridges and beg for money when his money ran out.
While searching for his son, he also became a prominent member of China's missing persons search organizations and helped at least seven parents reunite them with their kidnapped children.
As soon as news of Guo's son was located, Chinese social media was flooded with messages of support for the father.
“A lot of parents may have given up long ago,” one person wrote on Weibo microblogging platform.
He is a very amazing father and I am really happy for him.”
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