Las Vegas Foster Child Focus of International Custody Battle

NORTH LAS VEGAS, Nevada – Police in Nevada say an international custody battle has stalled over a 3-year-old girl who disappeared from a North Las Vegas foster home and ended up in Mexico.

North Las Vegas police Sgt. Tim Bedwell tells the Las Vegas Review-Journal newspaper that Carla Espinosa-Alvarez is a U.S. citizen and legal ward of Clark County.

He says the investigation stalled because detectives can't talk with her mother.

The foster mother told police that a masked couple abducted the child at gunpoint May 8.

Police say the child's biological mother told Mexican authorities she paid the foster mother to bring the girl across the border.

Officials say the girl was put in foster care last year after the mother went to Mexico but was denied entry back into the U.S.