An American woman wanted for kidnapping her own children and fleeing to the Philippines was arrested by Immigration agents late last week in Subic, Zambales.
Immigration commissioner Jaime Morente said Ana Centillas Lorrigan, 57, was arrested by the agency’s fugitive search unit in Barangay Calapacuan Friday.
She will be deported to the US for being an undocumented alien as her passport and those of her two children have already expired.
“Lorrigan left her children with her sister,” Morente said.
The US embassy in Manila informed the BI that Lorrigan is wanted to stand trial before a district court in southern California where she was indicted for the crime of “international parental kidnapping.”
The 1993 International Parental Kidnapping Crime Act, a federal law, makes it a crime to remove a child from the US or retain a child outside the US with the intent to obstruct a parent’s custodial rights, or to attempt to do so, a BI statement explained.
Those found guilty of violating this law face up to three years in jail.
BI spokesperson Antonette Mangrobang said Lorrigan and her children, a girl and a boy, arrived in the county April 15, 2011 and had not left since then.
Lorrigan will be placed on the BI’s blacklist and prevented from returning to the country.