In Kiev, Ukraine, authorities have shut down an international ring of baby smugglers who reportedly sold newborns for $50,000. Officials at a local hospital, which has not yet been named, were arrested along with numerous Ukrainian and foreign nationals who have been accused of taking part in human trafficking.
According to authorities, the infants were born to surrogate mothers before being smuggled abroad. The plot reportedly involved staging fake marriages between foreign nationals and local women using false documents. Then, the hospital would give the couple a child from a surrogate mother as well as forged documents used to take the children out of the country. The average cost for a newborn was roughly $50,000, which included $15,000 for the artificial insemination and $1,200 for the sham marriage.
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The raid was carried out by officers from the Ukrainian Investigative Committee and the National Police, who released a statement that read, "Eleven searches were carried out on 24th April at the addresses of the residents, offices, clinics and in cars. During the searches medical documents, passports of Ukrainian citizens and certified copies of passports of foreign citizens, letters of attorney for representing interests, other documents, money, laptops, mobile phones, draft recordings, and flash media were seized."
While arrangements were made to transport the children, they were kept hidden in an apartment in Kiev’s Solomensky district. Police officers found five babies, ages two to six weeks old, who were being cared for by two women and a man. Juvenile prevention workers placed the babies in other children's hospitals in Kiev. The local prosecutor's office stated, "The systematization and analysis of the seized documentation continues.”
The local prosecutor's office added that 140 foreign nationals were being investigated for their involvement in the smuggling of newborns abroad, which violates international laws. The investigation is ongoing and those arrested have been transferred to a pre-trial detention center.
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According to World's Children, a non-profit organization, one in four victims of trafficking are children. More than 10 million adults and nearly 4 million children are trafficked each year, mostly as victims of forced labor. The International Labor Organization reports that forced labor generated USD $150 billion in illegal profits per year. Children are generally four times more likely to be trafficked for labor rather than sex and are often taken from their families and forced to perform domestic household services, or work in factories or agriculture.
Source: The Sun