Colorado Man Reunites With Birth Mother 35 Years After Alleged Baby Theft in Chile

A Chilean man who was adopted by an American family has reunited with his biological mother. He was about 9 months old when he was allegedly taken by a fake adoption ring. In an interview with the Associated Press, the man said he believes his adoptive parents were not aware of the circumstances.

Kyle Adler, 36, was 9 months old in 1990 when he was adopted by a couple in Chicago. Most os his childhood was spent in the suburbs. Later, he became aware that he had been adopted, but it was not until adulthood that he began searching for his biological family.

In 2017, Adler, the owner of Colorado Weighlifting in Denver, connected with Nos Buscamos Organization, which uses the genealogy platform MyHeritage to reunite families. According to the Associated Press, his search was briefly stalled after he learned about the circumstances surrounding his adoption. He said he needed time before he further explored his background.

In 2025, he resumed the search for his biological family. A match was confirmed between him and Ana Maria Navarrete, 56. He flew to Chile from Miami in February to meet her. He told AP, it was like "eye-opening to see who my people are ... I feel the love, I feel the compassion, the care."

Adler was born Marcos Antonio. His mother was a 19-year-old single parent who was living in the city of Coronel. Navarrete told AP she could not afford a room for two, so she hired a woman to care for him while she worked.

One day, the woman told her that Antonio had been taken by an American couple. A police investigator told Navarrete that the couple might have absconded with her son as part of a fake adoption network.

Navarrete told AP that the following years were "some of the worst" of her life. After reuniting with her son, she felt like her "dream had finally come true." The pair spent time together in Coronel, visiting the beach and the hospital where Adler was born.

Adler's adoptive parents, Mike and Connie, died in 2022. However, he believes they were not aware of the situation. "Didn't steal me; they didn't name me Kyle out of malice," he told AP.

He was one of the thousands of children who were stolen from families in Chile during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. Many similar cases have been documented over the years.