Bulgarians caught for baby trade
Three Bulgarians were remanded in custody on Saturday – and a fourth yesterday – on suspicion of selling babies to childless couples in Crete for between 10,000 and 12,000 euros each, police said. The arrests began when three members of the group were caught handing over a 3-month-old baby girl in return for 12,000 euros to two undercover Hania police officers. The three suspects were the child’s 22-year-old mother, a 50-year-old woman and her 18-year-old son. The 52-year-old head of the family handed himself in to police yesterday. All four will face criminal charges. The baby’s mother claimed she agreed to sell her baby in return for some 6,000 euros, which she needed to buy a house in Bulgaria, police said. The baby, which is ill, is being treated in the children’s clinic of a Hania hospital. The rest of the gang are suspected of having been involved in at least two other similar cases in Crete in the last three months. Their tactic was to bring over pregnant Bulgarian women so they could give birth in Cretan hospitals – a technique often used by Bulgarian baby-trading rings, police said.
