A Bellingham woman, Talisa Manuella Munoz, 32, appeared in U.S. District Court in Seattle after being extradited from Panama on charges of international parental kidnapping. The announcement was made by U.S. Attorney Charles Neil Floyd.
Munoz is accused of failing to return her 4-year-old son to his father as required by a final parenting plan. Instead, she allegedly used false documents to obtain a passport for the child and secretly traveled with him to Panama. Magistrate Judge Kate Vaughan ordered Munoz detained pending trial, citing her as a flight risk due to “the extensive planning and misrepresentation that the defendant engaged in to secrete the child and take him to Panama.”
According to the criminal complaint, Munoz was supposed to return the child on September 8, 2025, following a weekend visitation. When she did not do so, the father reported it to law enforcement and the FBI began an investigation.
Authorities found that months before leaving for Panama, Munoz had falsely claimed on her son’s passport application that she could not locate or contact the father. She submitted a birth certificate listing “none named” for the father’s name. The investigation revealed that Munoz conspired with family members over several months before flying out of Seattle around September 7, 2025.
The Department of Justice’s Office of International Affairs (OIA) and the U.S. Embassy in Panama City coordinated with Panamanian law enforcement to arrest Munoz and secure her extradition back to Washington state on January 8, 2026. Her son has since been reunited with his father.
International parental kidnapping carries a maximum penalty of three years in prison. Making a false statement in a passport application can result in up to fifteen years in prison.
“The charges contained in the criminal complaint are only allegations. A person is presumed innocent unless and until he or she is proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.”
The FBI is investigating this case, which is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Cecelia Gregson.
