Boy missing for 16 months found abandoned at Sydney daycare

A nation-wide hunt for a missing toddler has come to an end with the little boy being found safe and well 16 months after he was snatched from a GP’s office.

Two-year-old Hoang Vinh Le's parents split up shortly after he was born in June, 2020.

Stepping in to raise the newborn was his grandmother Kim Huong Tran who continued to look after Vinh even when his mum and dad got back together, A Current Affair reported on Monday.

With Kim unwilling to hand the baby over, Vinh’s father Hoang Thanh Le allegedly snatched him from a doctor’s waiting room in Canberra in April 2021 and refused to give him back.

Weeks later police arrested both Thanh and Vinh’s mother Lyn Kim Do, who told officers they’d paid a woman $200 to take him for a night, ACA reported.

With Vinh’s parents refusing to say where their child was, officers launched a country-wide search, scouring properties in Sydney, regional NSW and Perth.

Dropped off at daycare and never picked up

After almost a year and a half, Vinh’s grandmother Kim finally got the call she was so desperate for.

On September 25, police phoned to ask if she’d lost a grandchild and what his name and date of birth were.

She was told that her grandson, now a two-year-old boy, had been dropped off for the day at a childcare centre in Sydney’s southwest by a young woman.

But just three hours later the woman called the Campsie centre to say she urgently needed to go to Vietnam for a funeral.

“She want[ed] to keep him there for a day but the lady say[s], no I don’t take care overnight, you have to come pick him up,” Kim told A Current Affair.

“No one pick[ed] him up for three days.”

It wasn’t until staff at the childcare centre recognised Vinh that they called police.

Boy home - but no longer responds to his name

“Finally I got him back,” said Kim who always believed the day would come when he would be found.

While he seems healthy and happy, she added that the two-year-old, who no longer responds to his name, has a long way to go.

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“He cries during the night,” Kim explained, “so when he sleeps I’m always there with him.”

“I think he’s a bit frightened because he just doesn’t want anyone to leave him.”

Police are continuing their investigation into who hid the toddler for the past 16 months.

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