Baby trade pair caught in the act
A Bulgarian baby-trading ring recruiting pregnant mothers to bear infants for childless Greek families was an immaculately organized operation which has sold at least 10 babies in the last six years, police in the southern Bulgarian city of Plovdiv said on Saturday after arresting two gang members on Wednesday. Officers arrested a 31-year-old woman identified only as Yinka S. and her male cousin – who has not been named – during an attempt to transfer to Greece two heavily pregnant Gypsy women from villages in central Bulgaria, whose children were destined for adoption by Greek families prepared to pay up to 15,000 euros for each baby. The two pregnant women – identified as Totka P., 35, and Eleni P., 30 – had been locked up in a Plovdiv motel room by Yinka S. after they had changed their mind about the sale of their yet-to-be-born babies which had been negotiated with their husbands, said police. After three days of captivity, one of the women escaped from the room and alerted police who subsequently arrested Yinka S. and her cousin. The case has been referred to Interpol. Finally, as regards the issue of Europe’s nascent rapid reaction force, Greece’s political leaders believe that alterations in the so-called Ankara document are imperative. This text was drawn up after extra-institutional consultations by the United States, Great Britain and Turkey, adopted by all of Greece’s EU and NATO partners, and gives Ankara (and all other NATO members that are not also EU members) the ability to play a substantial role in the planning of EU military operations.
