Three former state wards sent to Africa by their adopted mother have been located by the U.S. State Department, and the children will likely be returned here, an Illinois child welfare official said Thursday.

The three brothers, ages 9, 11 and 12, were attending schools in Ghana, where they were taken by their mother, Esi Antobam, who is charged with smuggling aliens into the United States, officials said.

Antobam was a foster mother for the boys, whom she later adopted.

Under the state's subsidized adoption program, the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services continued to pay Antobam to raise the children.

"We were paying the mother, and she was paying to send them to school in Ghana,'' said DCFS Chief of Staff Martha Allen. "Two were at the Hariom International Boarding School in Salt Pond, Ghana, where diplomats send their children. The oldest child was in the home of the pastor and his wife, friends of the mother of the children. He was attending a Montessori school there.''

Antobam's situation was disclosed earlier this week by Chicago Sun-Times columnist Michael Sneed, who reported that Antobam was arrested last October after a federal investigation that began when she allegedly tried to bring her granddaughter into the United States under a phony passport.

Antobam is in a federal prison in the Loop, awaiting trial.

When Antobam was arrested at her Bolingbrook home, federal officials found four illegal aliens and a suitcase filled with passports, according to an affidavit from an immigration agent.
A former tenant told the agent that Antobam had claimed to have purchased another child, according to the affidavit.
Allen said last week that "this is not a DCFS case,'' but after Sneed's report, DCFS officials asked a Will County judge for temporary custody of Antobam's adopted sons, since she is incarcerated.
"We're going to send some people there to ascertain what their situation is now,'' Allen said. "We're going to make sure they get medical exams before they leave the country.
"The children were placed in good hands," she said. "The children were well-cared for. They were well-adjusted, courteous gentlemen.''