A picture showing the comparison of two portraits of Meiyi, a suspected child trafficker in South China's Guangdong Province. The left was released by the local police in June 2017, and the right one, posted online by China's Safety Emergency Response, was said by the authorities to be false on Monday. Photo: Screenshot of Pear Video

A colored portrait of a secret child trafficker named "Meiyi" (Aunt Mei) went viral recently on various social media platforms in China with a post calling for people to repost so that the suspect can be arrested as soon as possible to protect more families from harm. 

On Monday, the official Sina Weibo account of the Ministry of Public Security, said that the portrait released by China's Child Safety Emergency Response (CCSER) is not official and that CCSER is a non-governmental platform.

The police of South China's Guangdong Province said that identification and appearance of Meiyi have not yet been confirmed, reported the Xinhua News Agency on Tuesday.

Clouded Portraits 

A police officer in the Zengcheng district branch of the public security bureau of Guangzhou, said the nicknamed "Meiyi" emerged in 2017 when another child trafficker Zhang Weiping was arrested. Zhang had kidnapped nine children from 2003 to 2005 under the brokering of Meiyi, according to Xinhua.

In order to unveil who "Meiyi" was, the police sketched a portrait of the woman and released it to the public in June, 2017 with a reward for any information pertaining to the investigation. That was the first time the police released a portrait of Meiyi. No clues were ever found.

The police found a man suspected of knowing Meiyi based on the information provided by Zhang. The man claimed he had a girlfriend named Pan Dongmei. But there was no adequate evidence to show that Pan is Meiyi.

Upon requests from families of the kidnapped children, in March, the police hired a police officer to draw the second portrait of Meiyi according to the man's description. Zhang said the similarity between the second portrait and Meiyi is less than 50 percent.

Lin Yuhui, a retired police officer from East China's Shandong Province who is famous for painting portrait of suspects, claimed on Monday that he sketched the second portrait of Meiyi under the invitation of the Zengcheng police, and it was black and white. Lin said an enthusiast made up the colored image with a blue background and sent it to the kidnapped children's family, the Beijing Youth Daily said.

On Monday, a secretariat of CCSER told the Beijing Youth Daily that the platform released the portrait to garner more public attention to the case, and hopefully find clues in the investigation. Zhang Yongjiang, a representative of CCSER, confirmed that the platform's non-governmental background and said that the platform has found more than 800 missing children in the last four years.

Zhang said he worked as a criminal police officer before, and the platform was established to reduce police's workload from the grassroots, and assist finding missing children. Information gathered by CCSER is reported to the police to support their work, according to the Beijing Youth Daily

Chasing a ghost?

Because all leads on Meiyi's involvement in the child trafficking case are based on Zhang's accusation, the police are still investigating in the case, reported Xinhua.

CCSER said there is no evidence to prove whether Meiyi exists and what she looks like, the People's Daily reported on Wednesday.

In 2015, a one-year-old boy Shen Cong was kidnapped in Guangzhou, and his father, Shen Junliang never stopped searching.

"They said that there is no Meiyi and doubted Meiyi by saying that I made up the portrait, which is an insult to me," Shen said, according to the Pear Video.

Shen said there is no doubt that a human trafficker named Meiyi does exist, which can be proved by her accomplice and boyfriend, reported the Zhengzhou Evening News.

On October 19, 2016, the five arrested child traffickers were tried in the People's Court of Zengcheng district. Zhang said he sold a child to a middle-aged woman with medium height and Guangzhou accent in front of a hotel in Zengcheng.

On June 19, 2017, the Guangdong Provincial Public Security Department posted a notice on its official WeChat account to solicit information related to Meiyi. The post contained Meiyi's first sketched portrait. According to the post, Meiyi, whose real name is unknown, is about 65 years old, 150 cm tall, and speaks Cantonese and Hakka.

"The clue provided by Zhang Weiping is too vague, but it brought a light," Shen said.

Shen had been to the village where Meiyi once lived. Many people there confirmed her existence saying that they saw the woman several years ago. There is also an old man who confirmed his intermittent cohabitation with the suspect.

"Anyone who knows Meiyi please contact us since there are still seven children sold by Meiyi who remain lost," Shen said.

According to a statement released by Zengcheng police on November 11, two children sold by Zhang and his accomplices have been found by smart detection technology, and the police will continue searching for the other kidnapped children.

The statement also said the kidnapped children could not be found because of limited technology and measures from previous years. 

Global Times