If you’re trying to “find yourself” in this chaotic world these days, be careful about digging deep into your records — you may find out you’ve been “missing” (as in, possibly secretly kidnapped) for a while. TikToker Adrian Peru (@adrian_peru) posted a series of videos in which he recently discovered strange documents from his childhood, including a missing child poster from 2005 which allegedly features a photo of himself.
The video, posted on Jan. 31., 2025, has over 13M views, 2M likes, and 17K comments.
@adrian_peru explains that he was going through a file his mom had given him of his personal information so he could apply for a passport. He claimed that upon opening the file he found a poster of a missing child named Jorge Jimenez, but the image used on the flyer was of him.
“When did I ever go missing?” he asks in the video. “How come I was never told? I need to call my mom.”
He finds a similar document with another image from his childhood but this time, the name on the document is his own. Peru says the document is from “Smile Safe Kids,” a program families can use to try and locate their missing child. The document has one of the contact cards “ripped out,” indicating it may have been used in the past.
@adrian_peru Who the hell is Jorge Gimenez 🤔🤣🤣 #Missing #Poster #Paperwork #Old #Found #Mystery ♬ original sound – Adrian
“How many times did I go missing?” he asks repeatedly, displaying the documents. “I never went missing! Why is this in my paperwork?”
“I don’t know if they like made this as a joke when I was a kid,” he adds, “But who the hell is Jorge Gimenez?”
The comments were wild with shock, surprise, and speculation.
“Wait. Did we just find you????” wrote TikTok user @hayleelahrun.
“I have 3 kids,” added TikTok user @inkrosas4. “I’m gonna place this on their ‘important paperwork’ and when they ask im gonna dramatically drop my coffee mug.”
“Who’s gonna tell him?” wrote X user @TaraBull808, who reshared the video that has over 16.3M views, 121K likes, 7.2K reshares and 884 comments.
“He said ‘I never went missing’,” commented X user @thewalkerseven. “Dude I don’t think you were ever found.”
Is Adrian Peru’s aunt his real mom?
In a second video posted on Feb. 1., 2025, Peru explains that he discussed the contents of the file with his mom, and that she didn’t exactly give a straight answer, but that his photo may have been used by kidnappers who were targeting him and/or trying to steal him.
“Back in the day in 2005 they were stealing a lot of kids,” Peru explains in the followup video. “What they would do is put up a missing sign, with a photo of a kid, so that people would see photo and say ‘oh there’s the kid!’ and give them to the ‘family’ but the ‘family’ is the thief.”
“Growing up my older brothers used to always tell me, ‘Oh that’s why you were adopted or abducted’…” he added at the end of the followup video. “Those adopted jokes are starting to hit a little more now.”
@adrian_peru Part 2 on the missing kid 😭😭🙏🏾 (I am not Jorge Gimenez) #Missing #Poster #kidnapped #Mystery #Found #Update#Part2 ♬ original sound – Adrian
TikTok followers were not convinced. “Denial is the first stage. You’ll get through this Jorge,” wrote TikTok user @madig_2007.
“Now if you were kidnapped why would she tell you,” added TikTok user @pimpcesssnana, in a comment that has over 158.4K likes.
In a third video, Peru claims he went to the police station to ask about the missing child case from the flyer he found, but that they couldn’t find anything related to it. He added that he went to see his mom in person, and that when he typed in the phone number on the flyer, it came up in his contact list.
“It was my aunt’s phone number,” Peru details. “I thought that was weird.”
He then goes on to explain that his mom admitted it was a prank, and that his whole family knew about this joke, except for him.
“Low key I knew this wasn’t real, but the comments started making me double think,” he said at the end of the third video. “Case closed baby, this is not me.”
@adrian_peru Welcome to my family 😭🙄🙄 #kidnapped #Mystery #CaseClosed #Update #JorgeGimenez #Aunt ♬ original sound – Adrian
Still, lots of his followers asked questions about the validity of his birth certificate or continued to claim that his aunt was his mom, and that Peru should get a DNA test.
Peru then made a fourth video dispelling some of the comments he was continuing to get on his other videos. He explained that someone even came up to him in real life, saying they were adopted too.
“I’m not adopted, if anything I’m kidnapped,” Peru said. “We are not the same.”
Peru also shared some family photos where he pointed out that he and his siblings “look alike” and that even if he had been kidnapped, he was “with this family that’s not mine, supposedly my whole life. That’s all I know,” adding that even the idea of him being his aunt’s son was absurd, because she her last name was not Gimenez.
“Get a life,” he told the skeptics. “I love my family.”
“Bro is moving from denial to bargaining,” wrote TikTok user @mattmaxio.
“The baby photos only go back as far as the kidnapped age omg lol,” pointed out TikTok user @chanelwalters1.
Is the case really closed, or is Adrian Peru just messing with us? Social media users aren’t convinced
Although Peru seems to have closed some chapters, some parts of his life still remain a mystery. In a video he posted on TikTok from Feb. 6., 2025, he discussed how his two older brothers, and his younger sister, all got sizable chunks of cash inheritances from their great grandmother when she passed away, but he did not receive anything.
“She passed away when I was like 3 years old,” he states. “I don’t even know if I met her right…I always knew that my older brother got a piece of the wheel, he just got 10k…My other older brother, this guy’s only older than me by 2 years, and he also got 10K….But my younger sister just finished school, and I asked her like,’Oh, you already paid off your school?’ She’s like, ‘Yeah, I used the 10K my grandma left me.’”
“Everyone got it except for me,” he adds. “How you hating a 3 year old?”
Peru may think the case is closed, but that hasn’t stopped social media users from using their amateur detective skills.
TikTok user @earthly_humour wrote, “We’re slowly watching him figure it out in real time lol.”
“She didn’t leave you nothing. She left you a HINT lol,” added TikTok user @vae_lash.artistry.
“That Adrian Peru guy is like the middle child (no.3 out of 4 kids I think).,” wrote @PettiSpaghhetti on X. “If he was really kidnapped, that’s really greedy of the parents that took him!”
Others are thinking Peru may have made the entire story up just for social media clout.
X user @SommerRv15 posted that “This Adrian peru guy always be posting outlandish things to get clout on tiktok.”
“I feel like he’s messing with us at this point,” TikTok user @abbimini stated after watching the video.
The Daily Dot has reached out to Adrian Peru via Instagram DM for comment.
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