Inside the Touching Moment When Man Abducted 73 Years Ago at Age 6 Reunited with Brother: 'Tight, Long Hug'

More than half a century after a 6-year-old boy was lured away and kidnapped while he played in an Oakland park with his brother, he was stunningly found living on the East Coast as a grandfather.

Luis Armando Albino, who was kidnapped in February 1951, was miraculously located after his niece took a DNA test that first revealed that he was possibly alive. When the FBI helped Albino travel back to California 73 years later, the long-lost boy-turned-grandfather was able to reunite with his brother, Roger, months before the latter died, the Associated Press reported.

“They grabbed each other and had a really tight, long hug, they sat down and just talked,” Albino’s niece Alida Alequin, who spoke to The Mercury News, said of the brothers’ reunion.

On Feb. 21, 1951, Luis and Roger were playing in a park in West Oakland when a woman in a red bandana approached the younger Luis and promised to buy him candy, per the AP. Instead, he was flown across the country and raised by a couple on the East Coast.

Roger was reportedly questioned by police in the aftermath of the kidnapping, but there was no trace of his younger brother until 2020, when Alequin decided to take a DNA test “for fun,” KTVU reported.

The test revealed a 22% match with a man that she had never met, the outlet reported. 

“My daughter found a lot of pictures of this man, and we started comparing,” Alequin told KTVU. “The resemblance was so strong; how much he looked like my other uncles. And then another picture where he looked so much like my grandmother, that one gave me chills, and I said, ‘There’s something here.’”

In 2024, there was finally a break in the case. After Alequin searched through old news clippings at the Oakland Public Library, she contacted police about her potential uncle.

“On March 18, 2024, a woman contacted OPD’s Missing Persons Unit regarding the possible location and identity of her uncle, Luis Albino, who had been missing for more than 70 years,” the Oakland Police Department told PEOPLE in a statement. “The woman told our investigators that her online DNA test results matched an individual believed to be her uncle, who was kidnapped in 1951.”

The department was ultimately assisted by the FBI, and in June, Albino was finally found. 

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KTVU reported Albino has since visited California twice, once in June and again in July and even visited Roger, who was the last family member to see him in 1951. The two reportedly talked about their memories of that fateful day and bonded over their respective stints in the military.

Roger died in August, the outlet reported.

Alequin recalled meeting her uncle in person for the first time in an interview with KTVU.

“Lots of hugs and tears,” Alequin said. “He hugged me really tight and he said, ‘Thank you for finding me.’ And he gave me a kiss on the cheek.”