We Sell Babies To Assist Pregnant Girls, Childless Couples – Suspected Traffickers

Suspected child traffickers, who were recently paraded by the Special Anti Robbery Squad (SARS) at the Delta State Police Command headquarters, Asaba, have revealed that they sell babies to assist pregnant girls and married couples without children.

Operatives of SARS arrested some suspected human trafficking syndicates and recovered over five children suspected to have been sold by members of the group who operate in Delta, Anambra, Cross River, Akwa-Ibom, Rivers and other states of the country.

But the suspects while responding to questions from our correspondent said, “We sold babies between 1-5 years of age to those who have been married for several years without children, some of us are nurses and supportive staff of health institutions, we do not know how the police got wind of our illicit businesses while we were operating in Asaba and Onitsha. In most cases, a child cost N250,000 to N500,000 while grown up ones are sold for N1,000,000. We are asking God to please forgive us our sins.”

Investigations revealed that the suspects took the SARS operatives to Akwa-Ibom State where two children were rescued and two other persons suspected to be members of their gang were also arrested.

One of the suspects who claimed to be Patience Okon, said, “Since the mothers cannot take care of their babies because of lack of money, we normally arrange for wealthy parents who have no children but in need of children to come and buy from us and take them away after which we issue receipts to them for payment. We don’t steal the children as police are alleging but the mother of these children in most cases opted for the business, some of them don’t even know the men who impregnated them while some will be hiding from their parents, so we do help them to solve their problems.”

Other suspects who spoke in the same vein said, “We were just helping out some persons who are in need. We are not human traffickers even though we make money from it, the mother of the babies wanted to throw away the babies, so we came to assist this young girls so that they would not throw away the babies or kill them.”

But the commissioner of Police in the state, Alkali Baba Usman, told our correspondent that there is an inter-state human and child trafficking syndicate cell in Asaba.

SARS operatives proactively arrested the gang leader of the syndicate, saying that the suspect and her

husband allegedly confessed to the crime and led the officers to their different hideouts in Anambra, Akwa-Ibom, Cross River were five of the children adopted for sale were rescued.