293 Days Without My Son
When Valentino was abducted, I knew three things: he’d been taken by his father, he was somewhere in India and I would not rest until I found him
Valentino was born on February 4, 2021, at Centenary Hospital in Scarborough. I’d been nervous about giving birth, but as soon as they put my son in my arms, I started laughing and crying simultaneously. He was just so beautiful. The very fact of him felt like a magic trick. I knew right then that I would do anything to keep him safe.
I had met Valentino’s father, Kapil, on a dating website in 2017. I was 27 and living in my hometown in the Brazilian state of Rondônia, near Bolivia. My mother and I managed two hair salons, one on each side of the border, and I helped support my brothers while one pursued his doctorate and the other studied law. When Kapil messaged me, I was excited. Our conversations were playful, easy and warm. I knew only Portuguese and Spanish, and Kapil, whose family was Indian, mostly spoke English. Luckily, he knew a bit of Spanish, and we made it work. He told me he was in his early 40s, lived on a 15,000-square-foot property near Toronto and owned a successful printing company.
What began as a fun flirtation quickly grew into something more. Within two weeks, Kapil flew down to meet me in Bolivia for New Year’s. He eagerly embraced my cultural traditions: he loved Brazilian food, and we ate grapes at midnight on New Year’s Eve for luck and prosperity. Most importantly, Kapil accepted me when I trusted him with a painful secret. When I was in my early 20s, a man I’d believed to be a friend had asked me to deliver a gift to his daughter. They lived near the border, and I was heading there to visit family. I didn’t think anything of it. I found out later that it had been a drug delivery. I spent almost three years awaiting trial, and I was terrified of what would happen to me. But it turned out that I wasn’t the only woman who had been targeted. In fact, there were so many that, between 2012 and 2018, the president of Bolivia issued several pardons that benefited women facing low-level drug charges, including me. I felt so much shame about the whole ordeal, but Kapil was compassionate and understanding. At the end of his week-long trip, he proposed to me with a promise ring. I was ecstatic. I knew things were moving fast, but I was in love.
He offered to get me a visitor’s visa to Canada so I could meet his parents. Being away from home would mean I couldn’t work, though. I was reluctant because my family depended on me, but Kapil offered to help out financially. I agreed to come for a month, and after completing reams of paperwork, I arrived in Toronto in July of 2018. His home was a beautiful farm property in Pickering, but I was surprised by how isolated it was. There were no buses, no sidewalks and no businesses nearby.
Shortly after I arrived, Kapil’s printing company filed for bankruptcy. I felt for him, but I was upset that he hadn’t told me the business was struggling. Once, when I tried to talk about it, he lost his temper and punched the wall next to my head. A few hours later, he brought me flowers and apologized. Looking back, it was an obvious red flag, but at the time, I was naïve enough to think it was a one-time thing.
A few weeks into my visit, Kapil started pressuring me to extend my stay. I felt trapped in Pickering. I was completely dependent on Kapil to get around. But he said if I left, it would be proof that I’d only been after his money. I didn’t want to abandon him, so I promised to stay by his side, and Kapil applied for a six-month visa extension.
In the fall, he bought me a proper engagement ring. He said that we should get married as soon as possible so I could travel freely between Canada and South America. I was conflicted. On one hand, I felt manipulated. There was a lot of pressure to go along with his plans, but I’d never intended to stay in Canada for so long. We had planned to ultimately live in South America, and I was still invested in that dream. I told myself that the man I loved was just buried beneath the stress of his business troubles.
We got married in December of 2018, but our relationship grew more toxic by the day. Whenever I raised the subject of moving home, he became aggressive. He started dangling a menacing threat: that he would report my prior drug charge to immigration—even though he was the one who had sponsored me and managed the entire process. I felt powerless. Then, in the fall of 2019, Kapil started getting physical again. Once, he pushed me up against a dresser and put all of his weight against me, pressing his arm hard into my stomach. In those moments, I shut down. I didn’t want to make things worse.
I tried to leave Kapil in early 2020. I got an Airbnb, but then Covid hit and the Airbnb shut down. I returned to Kapil’s house in May of 2020, and a few months later, I discovered I was pregnant. I had little money and no place to go, so I stayed. Just before Valentino was born, Kapil sold the Pickering property and we moved to Woodbridge. A few months later, once I’d recovered from the birth, I suggested that we meet up at a restaurant. I was going to ask for a divorce, and I wanted to have that conversation in a public place. I assured Kapil that I would stay in Canada, so he’d have access to his son, but I’d get my own apartment where Valentino and I would live. Kapil stormed out. Later, when he got home, he lost it. He yelled and hit me repeatedly in the back of the head until I blacked out. When I came to, he was in Valentino’s room with the door locked.
I panicked. I grabbed a butter knife and, in my desperation, used it to force the door open. I begged Kapil to leave us alone. When he refused, I got hysterical. In my fear, I threatened him, saying that if he didn’t leave I would kill him. Meanwhile, he’d picked up his phone and started recording me. I called the police, but when they arrived, Kapil showed them the footage of me holding a knife and threatening to kill my husband. It didn’t matter that it was a butter knife. Instead of listening to my account, they arrested me.
Kapil was given temporary custody of Valentino, and I was allowed to see my son only three times a week with no overnights. It felt like a part of my body had been amputated. I moved to Toronto, and with the help of a few friends I’d made since arriving in Canada, I found a basement to stay in. I started working as a house cleaner and enrolled in accounting classes. At one point, Kapil convinced me to move back in with him. I missed Valentino so much, and it was the only way to get more time with him. Kapil promised to go to therapy, and at first he seemed calm and gentle. But, eventually, he started abusing me again. I tried to stop him, but he was six foot five, more than a foot taller than me.
In January of 2024, I asked again for a divorce. I tried to do it amicably, but Kapil went mental. He beat me up, then he raped me. The next day, he took an old laptop to the police and claimed I had broken it. When the cops arrived at the house, they found me covered in bruises. They released me and charged Kapil with assault and sexual assault, then issued a restraining order against him.
I couldn’t believe it. Finally, after seven years, I was free, but it came with an agonizing trade-off: Kapil still had custody of Valentino. I didn’t have enough money to hire a lawyer, and it took a month for me to get access to legal aid, at which point we filed a court order petitioning for shared custody. I felt confident that I would get overnight visits soon. For the first time in a long time, I was hopeful.
Our divorce and custody case made it to the courts on July 2. Then, while we were in the middle of proceedings, I learned that Kapil had submitted a request to take Valentino on a trip to India. I opposed it, but the court sided with Kapil, approving a two-to-three-week trip between mid-July and mid-August, on the condition that he provide a full itinerary and have his mother act as an intermediary in our communications.
On July 22, when I went to pick Valentino up from daycare, he wasn’t there. I knew their trip was coming up, but no one had given me exact dates. I hadn’t had a chance to say goodbye to my son. I called Kapil only to find that his number had been disconnected. I called and then texted his mother to ask where my son was, but she told me she didn’t know and didn’t want to be involved anymore.
My next call was to the police to report that Valentino had been abducted. They contacted Kapil’s lawyer, who told us that Kapil and Valentino had left on a trip to India on July 18 and would return on August 8. I knew that last part was a lie, but the police and my lawyers told me there was nothing I could do. Waiting was excruciating. On the day of their scheduled return, I was getting ready to pick Valentino up when Kapil’s mother texted me to say that Kapil was sick and hadn’t flown back. Then she blocked me, a confirmation of the nightmare scenario that had been playing out in my head: Kapil had no intention of bringing Valentino back, and I had no idea where they were.
I alerted the police, who went to his parents’ house. No one answered the door, and the police said there was nothing else they could do. I’d known for weeks that my son was in trouble, and it felt like no one cared or was willing to help me find him. But I refused to do nothing. I started emailing every child protection agency and government organization I could find. I printed out what little information I had and stuck it to the walls of my apartment. Global Affairs Canada tried to contact Kapil to negotiate for Valentino’s return, but he didn’t respond. I knew then that I was on my own.
I’d known for weeks that my son was in trouble, and it felt like no one cared
The one upside was that, because Kapil hadn’t returned as planned, a judge granted me full custody of Valentino and issued a court order for Kapil to send Valentino back to Canada. But, until I found out where Valentino was, the order was useless. I started scrambling to dig up clues and spent days and nights researching. Then it occurred to me that a former associate of Kapil’s was from India, and they were close. When I contacted him directly, he claimed he didn’t know anything. So I posted photos of him on social media with a message saying I suspected this man was connected to my child’s abduction. I asked people to share whatever information they could. That day, someone messaged me anonymously with the names of the man’s parents and his sister. They also said he had been born and raised in Chandigarh, a city in northwestern India.
I figured that was where Kapil might have gone, so I hired a private investigator in Chandigarh. It cost $25,000, which I was able to afford only by taking out a loan in Brazil. The investigator found out that Kapil had spent $600,000 to buy a house in India under his lawyer’s name. He also reviewed street camera footage and thought he spotted Valentino in a candy shop in Chandigarh. Finally, I had a lead.
I needed to go there, but I was running out of money. I had to be absolutely sure it was the right place. I posted again on social media, this time using an AI translation tool so that the audio was in Hindi, and asked for help finding Valentino. I paid to target users in New Delhi, since it’s one of the most populous areas in the country, but I also advertised across India. About a week later, someone anonymously sent me a picture of a young boy. He was skinny, but I could tell it was Valentino. He was dressed in a uniform, so I googled the name on it and found out that it was a daycare in Chandigarh. Then I got another anonymous message from a person who said they’d heard that a father and son fitting Kapil’s and Valentino’s descriptions had bought a house a few streets away from a candy store. Now I was sure: my son was in Chandigarh. I hired a lawyer in India and packed a bag.
I arrived in Chandigarh on January 30, 2025, and went straight to the courthouse to file a motion charging Kapil with illegal detention of a child. I also paid my driver to go to Kapil’s house and keep an eye on it.
The next day, the court sent two plainclothes officers to confirm that Valentino was with Kapil. But Kapil must have suspected something, because he quickly left town. Luckily, the driver I’d paid had followed him to a smaller city called Panipat, a three-hour drive away. So I bought clothing that covered me from head to toe, to help me blend in, and took an Uber all the way to Panipat. Once there, I managed to find Kapil’s car parked on the street.
I started calling local politicians at random, hoping that someone would be willing to help. One of them took the time to listen to my story. His name was Parmod Kumar Vij, and he had family back in Canada. He called the local police and told them to track down Kapil and Valentino and do whatever they could to hold them for 24 hours—the amount of time it would take for us to get a court order to detain them. When the police found Kapil, he was indeed in Panipat, at his cousin’s house. Luckily, our court order in Chandigarh came through. Kapil was now forbidden from fleeing.
Still, in some ways, the hardest part was yet to come: to get my son repatriated, I had to navigate an unfamiliar system in a foreign language. We petitioned the Indian courts to recognize the Canadian custody order. In one of our hearings, I was finally able to see Valentino. I hadn’t seen him in more than nine months—293 days. I’d missed his fourth birthday. When he spotted me in the courtroom, he looked confused, but then a big smile broke out on his face. He threw his hands in the air, yelled, “Mommy!” and ran into my arms. I fell to my knees and cried, hugging and kissing my son while thanking God for helping me find him.
At the end of April—three months after my arrival in India—the judge presented his final decision. He ruled that Valentino needed to be repatriated to Canada in my care. But, as the verdict was read out, Kapil and Valentino were nowhere to be found. They hadn’t shown up at the courthouse that day. I went with the police to Kapil’s house, but no one was there.
I was out of ideas—and money. I was receiving $900 every other week from a government grant, the Canadian Federal Income Support for Parents of Murdered or Missing Children, but I had no other income while I was away. Between lawyers’ fees, travel expenses and my Airbnb, the $900 payments didn’t go very far. I started a GoFundMe page and racked up credit card debt paying for my accommodations. I had no idea how I would ever pay it all off, but it didn’t matter. I couldn’t leave India until I had my son back.
After two weeks with no new leads, I decided to start knocking on doors in Kapil’s neighbourhood. The person who owned the Airbnb I was staying at offered to come along to help with translation, and I printed flyers that had a photo of Kapil and Valentino, a copy of the court order, and news articles about how my child had been abducted. Many residents refused to open their doors or answered only to shoo me away. Others were sympathetic but clueless. Finally, someone told me that the woman who cleaned Kapil’s house lived across the street. I immediately ran over.
When she saw me, she looked as if she’d seen a ghost. Apparently, Kapil had told his household staff that I’d died. The woman didn’t know where Kapil was, but she was still taking care of his house, and he’d left a number in case of emergency. I got in touch with the police, who called the number. It turned out to be for Kapil’s lawyer, who had a house in New Delhi where police found Kapil and Valentino. Officers brought them to court in Chandigarh the next day.
The judge again ordered that Valentino be returned to me, but there was another delay: Kapil had launched an appeal, so the court confiscated my passport and gave Valentino and me 24-hour police protection. Despite the circumstances, I felt so much joy at being reunited with my son. In those first few days, we didn’t talk much. He just wanted to be in my arms. We sang some of our favourite songs and pretended to be dinosaurs, which was Valentino’s favourite game. It had been almost a year since Valentino had left Toronto. He was so much bigger; he’d grown out of diapers and was speaking in full sentences. I couldn’t believe how much I’d missed.
In the middle of May, Kapil’s appeal was denied. When I left the courthouse, still under police protection, Kapil ran up to us menacingly. My lawyer quickly scooped up Valentino and escorted us back inside until Kapil left. Later that day, I got a strange call from an unknown number. The person on the line told me I was not safe and that I needed to leave Chandigarh. I had no idea who it was, but I wasn’t going to take any chances. The police drove us straight to the train station. I didn’t even stop to pick up my laptop and other belongings. We boarded the first train to New Delhi.
Valentino had overstayed his visitor’s visa, so I knew we’d have to pay a fine when we left the country. I called the Indian Bureau of Immigration to sort it out, but they told me they’d received a tip that Valentino was being kidnapped by his mother: Kapil had called them in a last-ditch effort to keep us from leaving the country. He had also filed a second appeal with the Supreme Court of India. I had no money left, but then a miracle happened: a $12,000 grant came through from the Canadian government, from a fund for people victimized abroad. With that money, I hired another lawyer to represent me in New Delhi, and he was able to prepare a case in 24 hours and get immigration to release us. After paying his fees, I didn’t have enough left to buy plane tickets. It wasn’t until a week later, when a friend lent me money and I’d secured a second loan from Brazil, that I was able to get flights. They cost almost $4,000.
We arrived back in Toronto at the end of May. Before leaving for India, I’d finished painting Valentino’s bedroom and put up dinosaur decals. Friends of mine had come over in the days before our return to get the apartment ready for us. My church had raised money to buy food, and everyone filled the fridge with Valentino’s favourites: rice pudding, Jell-O and yogurt drinks. Valentino got so excited when he came home and saw all of his snacks and his finished bedroom. He remembered that we’d picked out the dinosaur stickers together and was thrilled to see his room fully decorated. He also told me how much he’d missed the weather in Toronto. It was too hot for him in India, and he preferred the cooler temperatures here.
Despite how relieved I was to be home, I had a feeling the ordeal wasn’t over. Less than two weeks after we got back, the police called to say that they had arrested Kapil at Pearson. I was shocked. I’d figured he would follow us here eventually, but I thought I’d have more time to regroup. The police charged him with parental child abduction, and he spent a few days in jail before being released on bail. Now he’s under house arrest and staying with his parents. He has to wear an ankle monitor, and there’s a restraining order that says he can’t come near me or Valentino unless we’re in court.
Kapil’s trial date hasn’t been set yet. In the meantime, he has hired a lawyer and is attempting to get partial custody. For a while, I was getting emails from his lawyer saying that if I didn’t give partial custody voluntarily, they’d take me to court. I had to hire yet another lawyer to respond to him. I don’t want to deny my son access to his dad, but at the same time, he’s proven to be violent and has shown no respect for the law.
Valentino and I are taking things day by day. He doesn’t talk much about his time in India. He’s told me only that he felt very lonely there and that Kapil would get angry any time he asked to call me. This whole ordeal has taken a massive toll on me. While it was all happening, I slept three or four hours a night at most. My doctor says I developed fibromyalgia from all the stress. Sometimes it’s so painful that I get cold shivers and start crying uncontrollably. Valentino and I were able to access a federal fund that gave us each $10,000 to pay for counselling, which is helping. I see my therapist once or twice a week, and another therapist comes to our house to talk to Valentino.
Financially, I’m ruined. To be honest, I’ve avoided tallying my total spending because I don’t know if I can handle seeing the full damage just yet. I have at least $50,000 in loans to the bank in Brazil and another $8,000 on my credit card, plus there’s what I owe the friends and family who came through for me so generously. The bank repossessed my car because I stopped making payments when I was in India. In order to earn enough to pay it all back, I’ve taken out an OSAP loan and gone back to school for nursing. I think I would make a compassionate nurse, and the job prospects should be good when I graduate.
My highest priority right now is giving Valentino as much stability as I can. He just started junior kindergarten. In our free time, we paint, build Lego sets and play Minecraft. I’ve been working hard to rebuild our lives in Canada. One morning, not long after we got back here, I woke up early to do some work on my computer. Then I heard little footsteps running up behind me. The sound brought me to tears. For months, I thought I might never hear that sound again.
Editor’s note: Kapil has publicly denied all allegations of assault and sexual assault, and those charges against him were ultimately dropped. His outstanding charge—abduction of a child under 14 years in contravention of a court order—will likely go to trial this winter. For it, he faces a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.
This story appears in the February 2026 issue of Toronto Life magazine. To subscribe, click here. To purchase single issues, click here.
