Three people were arrested on Thursday in Bulgaria for participation in an infant trafficking ring active in Greece.
A lawyer, his female assistant and another woman, all Bulgarian nationals, were arrested on orders of the Sofia prosecutor bygents of the Bulgarian national security authority.
The three suspects are charged with participation in a crime ring that located pregnant Bulgarian women with financial difficulties and convinced the women to sell the infants to them after they gave birth, for 1,500-2,500 euros per infant, and then sought “buyers”.
The infants were then sold to families in Greece for 30,000-40,000 euros each, with the ring members assuring the families that the ‘adoptions’ were legal and effected through the legal process of international adoptions, according to the Bulgarian police’s organised crime unit.
The ring scouted out candidate parents in Greece, then would seek the pregnant women. The Greek ‘fathers’ would formally recognise the infants as their own biological children through a legal process at the Bulgarian clinic where the births took place.
The operation was completed with the issue of birth certificates and passports for the newborn infants, which were then taken back to Greece by the Greek parents.
Bulgarian police said that the ring had sold 13 infants in Greece and two in Bulgaria in one year.
(source: ana-mpa)
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