This was important for Bourdin’s trafficking narrative: a previously well-adjusted kid with stable family relationships might generate more skepticism about a trafficking story than a kid with a documented history of running away.

Bourdin made contact with the National Center and presented himself in terms vague enough to generate interest without immediately triggering verification.

He was put in contact with the family.

The conversations that followed — in which he simultaneously gathered information about Nicholas and performed distress about his supposed captivity — were themselves part of the deception.

By the time Carey Gibson landed in Linares to collect her supposed brother, Bourdin had already done months of preparation that she was entirely unaware of.

The Preparation He Did In Those Days Before Spain