What began as a family holiday to Mexico has left a Luxembourg father separated from his two children for more than two years. Authorities in Luxembourg are now investigating the case as a suspected international parental abduction.
The father, who has lived in Luxembourg since 1997, owns a renowned pub in the capital and has worked in hospitality for more than 25 years. He married his Mexican wife in Denmark, and the family settled in Luxembourg in 2013. Born in 2014 and 2017, the children attended an international school in Luxembourg.
In 2022, following the mother’s request to spend time in her home country, the family travelled to Mexico for what was intended to be an extended family holiday. Shortly before the planned return, the mother requested a divorce.
The father says he was shocked by the divorce request and proposed counselling in an effort to save the marriage, but his wife declined.
Through private detectives, the father later learned that his wife had been involved in an alleged affair with an Argentinian man during the family’s holiday period, which he believes may have been a contributing factor to the breakdown of their marriage.
According to his lawyers, during this period, a plan was put in place to unlawfully withhold the children in Mexico.
According to the father, the couple had mutually agreed to return to Luxembourg to file for divorce and discuss custody arrangements in an amicable manner. He says the situation changed abruptly one day when his wife left their rental holiday residence for the entire day, telling him she was seeking medical treatment for a sinus infection.
The father claims that during this time, the mother went to Mexican authorities to file complaints accusing him of domestic violence and abuse towards her and their children – allegations which, according to him, coincided with the planned return to Luxembourg.
Following her allegations, the Mexican police intervened, removed the father from the rental property, prohibited him from having any contact with his wife or children, and warned that attempting to see the children could result in arrest.
The father said the accusations came “completely out of nowhere”. He maintains that he has always been a caring and loving father and insists that he has never been violent towards his wife or children.
After the father was removed from the family’s rental home, he was allegedly harassed by local Mexican police following what his lawyers describe as a false emergency call made by his wife. His legal team says he was unlawfully arrested, subjected to police brutality at the station, robbed by officers, and placed in a jail cell.
The situation escalated to such an extent that his Mexican legal counsel sought federal protection for his safety, arguing the incident was a deliberate attempt to intimidate him amid his efforts to locate and reunite with his children.
As the father began contesting his wife’s accusations with the support of a Mexican legal team and the pressure intensified, the mother vanished with the children in December 2023.
A nationwide missing-children report was filed with the Mexican police department’s missing persons unit, and private detectives were hired to track their whereabouts.
The father also claims that the children’s passports had been taken and concealed, complicating the possibility of their return to Luxembourg.
With the help of private investigators, the father eventually traced the children to northern Mexico, to the state of Coahuila, where the children were believed to be hidden by his wife’s family. Traveling there, he presented the local police with the official missing children report, requesting their intervention.
According to the father, the police then contacted the mother’s family and instructed them to inform the mother to bring the children to the station. The mother’s lawyer, shortly after, contacted the police and agreed to bring the children on the condition that the father would be present without his lawyer.
Hoping to finally see his sons, he agreed. But when he arrived, he was kept in a separate room. After a private discussion between the mother’s lawyer and the police, he was informed that he is barred from seeing the children.
Outside, relatives forced the kids into a minibus, holding their heads down so they could not see him before driving away. The father describes the ordeal as deeply traumatic.
Shortly afterwards, the children disappeared again, and their whereabouts remained unknown.
The mother disputes several elements of the father’s account and provided a comment to RTL Today outlining her version of events.
In a written response to RTL Today, the mother disputed the father’s description of the events surrounding the family’s time in Mexico. She said she had already requested a divorce before the trip and that the family had initially planned to relocate to Mexico, pointing to what she described as preparations for a move, including renting a house and purchasing a car.
She also rejected the father’s description of the police intervention, saying officers asked him to leave the home following her complaint and that both parties received documentation instructing him not to contact her or the children while investigations were ongoing.
The mother added that she obtained a divorce in Mexico and disputes the characterisation of the situation as an abduction, having been granted provisional custody by a judge in Mexico.
