Meghan Markle (left) with her father Thomas Markle (Image: -)
Heavily-armed Mexican police have raided a storage unit rented by Thomas Markle near his former home. Officers from the Guardia Nacional – the country’s national security force – seized a computer and boxes full of thumb drives, magazines, photographs, books and other items during the operation on Saturday afternoon.
The area around the five feet by 10 feet unit was immediately cordoned off and a copy of a document that appeared to be an official search warrant was posted outside the facility. State officials from Mexico’s Baja California regional HQ reportedly oversaw the raid of the unit three miles from Mr Markle’s former home in Rosarito.
It came with the estranged father of the Duchess of Sussex now being investigated over child pornography allegations in three different countries. Hours before the raid police in Tijuana, Mexico, told the Express they were set to join American FBI agents already probing serious allegations against Mr Markle, 82, involving sexually explicit images and videos of underage girls.
Meghan Markle with her father Thomas before their rift. (Image: -)
A spokesperson for the crime-ridden border city’s municipal force said: “We are ready to co-operate with United States law enforcement and will closely examine all evidence available to us.”
Mr Markle, a former film lighting director, lived in the picturesque enclave of Rosarito, about 12 miles south of Tijuana, in a retirement home for 14 years between 2011 and 2025. He moved to a new home in Cebu City, in the Philippines, last year but has recently been recovering from a leg amputation at a medical centre in Lakeland, Florida.
Before the raid in Mexico, Mr Markle was photographed in a wheelchair being transferred from one medical rehab facility to another nearby. He was reportedly accompanied by his daughter Samantha, from his first marriage, and her boyfriend Mark Phillips – both of whom supported him in the aftermath of initial claims against him made by his son in the Philippines.
It was in Cebu, eleven days ago, that Thomas Jr reported his father to local police after allegedly finding a stash of “hundreds if not thousands” of child sex abuse images in four large storage boxes at his home.
Many of these were on a laptop computer which, along with other physical evidence, is currently being examined by police in the Philippines, where the country’s interior minister Jonvic Remulla last week declared: “In these cases, where family disputes are mixed up, we have to consider all the angles.”
He grimly added: “Right now all signs point to a possible sex offender of the grossest kind. We want to be sure before we release the findings. The forensics data will be complete in a week.”
Handwriting experts are also examining labels – written in pen – on some of the material discovered in Cebu, while in America the FBI has issued a statement saying the Bureau is “aware of the allegations and will provide support, as appropriate, to the Philippine authorities.
“We will also investigate any related allegations of federal violations of US law.”
Mr Markle has been undergoing physical therapy at the rehabilitation centre in Florida and has been fitted with a prosthetic leg following life-saving amputation surgery in Cebu after developing a blood clot.
In an interview last week, he described the allegations against him as “sick lies” and vowed he would do “whatever it takes to clear my name.”
His comments came before yesterday’s raid on the storage unit in Mexico, where further material was allegedly found. While there is no specific suggestion of wrongdoing by Mr Markle, nearby Tijuana is well known to authorities as a hub for sex-trafficking, with adult and child prostitution largely controlled by the warring Sinaloa and Jalisco cartels.
According to the most recent figures, released around this time last year, an astonishing 18,275 youngsters are officially listed as “missing” across all of Mexico, with many thousands more believed to be unreported.
Nine days ago, the Duchess of Sussex said she was “deeply distressed” by the initial allegations in the Philippines against her estranged father. Meghan added: “My thoughts are with any children who may have been harmed.”
Thomas Markle, father of Meghan, is seen running errands near his former home in Rosarito, Mexico. (Image: Shared Content Unit)
Meghan also revealed that she had been handed a letter – written by Mr Markle’s first wife Roslyn Loveless, who has since died – prior to the birth of her son, by the Metropolitan Police.
The letter made “serious and troubling” accusations about Mr Markle and Meghan added in her statement that, as a result, she has never allowed her father to see her and Prince Harry’s children – Archie, 7, and Lilibet, 5 – “for one reason: to protect them.”
Retired Los Angeles Police Department Lieutenant Marc Evans, now an internationally recognised authority on human trafficking who gives expert witness testimony at trials across the US, last night told the Sunday Express: “I would think any hope of tracking down or identifying youngsters in years-old photos would be next to impossible.”
Sadly, he added: “In poorer areas of countries like Mexico, children are sold for sex every day right under the noses of adults in the communities where they live.
“It is not just the cartels that are involved in this. Adults who are not engaged in other crimes or part of a criminal organisation know that they can make money from exploiting children.”
