What did you build?

Personas Encontradas VE is a Telegram bot and public API that helps people search public reports of individuals found or located after the earthquakes in Venezuela.

In emergencies, information is often scattered across spreadsheets, websites, community projects, and social posts. This project brings those public records into one searchable place, while keeping each result linked to its original source for verification.

People can use the Telegram bot to search by name or Venezuelan ID number, browse recent records, check current sources, and submit found-person reports for review. Developers and organizations can also integrate through a stable public API.

Who is it for?

This is for families looking for loved ones, community volunteers organizing emergency information, local initiatives publishing found-person data, and developers building humanitarian tools.

How does it help?

• Makes scattered public information searchable from Telegram.
• Keeps records source-linked so people can verify them.
• Supports citizen and partner reports.
• Provides a public API for other tools and organizations.
• Handles sensitive data carefully by avoiding unnecessary exposure of names, document IDs, raw messages, tokens, or private payloads in logs and analytics.

What should people try first?

Start with the Telegram bot:

https://t.me/encontrados_ve_bot

Try:

• /ayuda to see how it works.
• /buscar Nombre Apellido to search by name.
• /buscar V12345678 to search by Venezuelan ID.
• /lista to browse records.
• /fuentes to see current data sources.

The project is open source here:

https://github.com/edwinvrgs/found-people-ve-bot