Rudy Farias’ mother ‘claimed he was kidnapped by human traffickers’ while she hid Texas man in home

Rudy Farias’ mother Janie Santana may be suffering from Munchausen syndrome by proxy, a private investigator who tried to track him down told The Independent.

Brenda Paradise said that early on she felt many of Ms Santana’s claims about her son’s disappearance in 2015 didn’t add up, and says his mother probably lied to rake in thousands of dollars in public donations.

Ms Paradise told The Independent that when she first got involved with the case days after the missing person’s report was filed, she became aware that Ms Santana had created a GoFundMe page claiming that her son had been diagnosed with cancer.

She said she didn’t see any evidence that the diagnosis was genuine, and was unsure how much money the fundraiser attracted.

After Mr Farias’ case began attracting attention, the cancer fundraiser “quietly went away.” She said she mentioned the page to the Houston Police Department (HPD).

After Mr Farias was reported missing, Ms Santana set up a second fundraiser with the goal of making $75,000 to “help find Rudy”. She received just over $2,000 before the page was shut down this week.

Days after Mr Farias disappeared, Ms Paradise said she attended a community fundraiser organised to aid the search.

She told The Independent Ms Santana showed up two hours later, pocketed approximately $2,000, and then left within 20 minutes.

“I don’t know what she’s trying to get money for but it’s been a money grab the whole way.” Ms Paradise told The Independent.

Read more from Bevan Hurley’s interview with Ms Paradise here.

Rudy Farias’ mother once claimed that her son had been kidnapped by human traffickers while she was actually hiding him in her own home, according to a private investigator.

Brenda Paradise told The Independent she devoted hundreds of hours to finding Mr Farias but grew suspicious of his mother Janie Santana.

While claiming her son was missing, Ms Paradise said that Ms Santana repeatedly asked for money on her Facebook pages to help track him down.

Once, she asked for money to pay a ransom to a suspected human trafficker in Tijuana, Mexico, who she falsely claimed had kidnapped Mr Farias.

She even went to a morgue to identify a deceased body, Ms Paradise said.

Rudy Farias’ mother could soon face legal action from GoFundMe after she raked in thousands of dollars in donations by falsely claiming that her son was missing.

The fundraising platform said in a statement on Thursday that Janie Santana had been permanently banned from GoFundMe and from all future beneficiary opportunities after the bizarre scam came to light this week.

“GoFundMe has zero tolerance for the misuse of our platform and cooperates with law enforcement investigations of those accused of wrongdoing,” a company spokesperson said in a statement to The Independent.

Read more here:

Despite police now saying they know that the eight-year disappearance was nothing but a fraud, Rudy Farias’ mother Janie Santana is not currently facing any criminal charges.

In Thursday’s press conference, Houston Police Lt Zamora said the district attorney had declined to bring any charges in the case “at this time”.

“Being missing is not a crime,” Lt Zamora said, insisting that – under Texas law – Mr Farias was classed as an adult when he went missing.

When pressed that making fictitious reports to police was a crime, authorities stood by the “integrity” of the investigation and said that it is ongoing.

The discovery of a 25-year-old Texas man who had been reported missing eight years earlier was briefly welcomed as a minor miracle.

But since Rudy Farias was found with severe injuries outside of a Houston church on 29 June, the baffling story has unravelled with claims of lies, alleged abuse and greed.

Here is a timeline of the perplexing case:

At first glance, it appeared to be a happy ending where a family was reunited and a mother’s years of agony searching for her missing child finally came to an end.

But, it quickly became apparent that things weren’t what they seemed.

Rudy Farias’ remarkable return eight years after his mother Janie Santana filed a missing persons report turned out to be nothing but a scam.

One of the biggest questions surrounding the case is why Mr Farias’ mother continued to claim he was missing for eight years – when he had actually returned home just one day after he disappeared.

A possible motive has emerged in the fact that Ms Santana profited financially from the false claims of her son’s disappearance.

Jacque Brunswick, a woman who lived in the same Houston neighbourhood as Rudy Farias and his mother Janie Santana said she suspected that Mr Farias’ mother was involved in his disappearance.

Ms Brunswick appeared on NewsNation on Friday to react to the news that Ms Santana had lied about his disappearance. She said when Mr Farias was first reported missing in 2015, she suspected Ms Santana was involved.

“I honestly had always thought that Janie had something to do with it, had her hands in it some way or somehow,” she said. “After a couple of years, I started grieving him because I truly thought that he was dead.”

Ms Brunswick said she became close with Mr Farias following his brother’s death in a motorcycle accident.

“Rudy was really having trouble dealing with it and was wanting help,” she said. “And it wasn’t just me. There was some other people that you know, we started that taking him under our wings.”

Ms Brunswick said the then-teenager was “sheltered” and appeared to be afraid of his mother.

“He was a very timid young man, would not look at you when he spoke, especially if she was around,” she told anchor Chris Cuomo. “He would look at the ground and fidget with his hands.”

Brenda Paradise, a private investigator who tried to track down Rudy Farias when his mother first claimed he was “missing” told The Independent that early on she felt Janie Santana’s claims “didn’t add up” early on.

Ms Paradise began working on the case three days after Mr Farias was reported to have gone missing and devoted hundreds of hours to finding him.

Early on in the search for Mr Farias, Ms Paradise said she encouraged Ms Santana to go on television to appeal directly for Mr Farias’ return, but she refused to show her face.

“What mother doesn’t want to put their face out there really?”

Another perplexing detail came when Ms Paradise learned that his mother had given an incorrect date of birth for her son.

She said she wasn’t surprised when he turned out to have been with his mother all along. But her “jaw dropped” when she heard police would not be pressing charges.

“If somebody had held a little blonde girl hostage all those years, police would have been all over this case,” Ms Paradise said.

After the truth in the bizarre case of Rudy Farias was revealed last week, many are wondering where the 25-year-old man is.

Mr Farias was “found” last week after being declared missing for eight years.

However, in a strange turn of events, it turns out Mr Farias was never missing at all and living at home with his mother who would mislead police into believing her son was actually her nephew.

On Thursday, Houston police said that Mr Farias was safe and with his mother by choice.

However, Mr Farias’ aunt, Pauline Sanchez, told ABC 13 that he was not with his mother but was living with a friend.

“He’s safe. He’s comfortable. He did make the statement that he doesn’t want to see his mom. He doesn’t want to go back to his mom,” Ms Sanchez said.