Child trafficking, illegal surrogacy racket busted in Bengaluru, seven arrested

BENGALURU: The Central Crime Branch (CCB) police have busted a child trafficking racket in an undercover operation, and arrested seven people, including six women, on Tuesday. The arrested are Sharanya, Radha, Suhasini, Mahalakshmi, Gomati, Hemalatha and Kannan Ramaswamy.

A team of CCB officers conducted an undercover operation for one month to bust the child trafficking network. A decoy police personnnel, posing as a prospective parent, had run into the child trafficking network in the city.

Among the seven arrested, Mahalakshmi and Radha are the prime accused. Mahalakshmi would scout for those wanting a child while Radha would find a child and send it to Mahalakshmi through Sharanya and other agents.

Sharanya would accompany Radha when striking the deals and would collect the money after selling the child. Suhasini was a surrogacy agent who would find those who needed children and would direct them to who would give them a child.

Radha would send Hemalata and Sharanya to collect money and then deliver the child to the prospective parents. She was working as a surrogacy agent in a hospital in Tamil Nadu. She used to target those who were not able to conceive and contact them.

Kannan Ramaswamy also acted as an agent in the whole network. When Mahalakshmi told Radha that she needs a child, the latter would inform Kannan who then Kannan informed Gomati who, in turn, would contact the surrogate mother.

Mahalakshmi would get information about people looking to adopt a child in Karnataka and then pass on the information to a gang in Tamil Nadu. Then, the gang would get to work making lists. Gomati would help transport the child and the mother from Tamil Nadu and Hemalatha always follows Radha’s directions, City Police Commissioner B Dayananda said at a press conference on Tuesday.

The police commissioner, briefing about the child trafficking racket, said the accused targeted pregnant women who were coming for abortion. The gang would convince them to give birth to the child and makes arrangements for them to stay. After delivery, they share photos of the child and targeted those who were looking to adopt children.

After that, they will send them a photo of the child and strike a deal. They would also create necessary documents for the child and would sell baby boys for anywhere between Rs 5 lakh and Rs 10 lakh and baby girls from Rs 4 lakh up to Rs 5 lakh. They would give about Rs 1 lakh to Rs 2 lakh to the mother of the child, the police commissioner said.

Earlier, the accused used to take the surrogate mothers to the hospitals and work as agents. After the Surrogacy (Regulation) Act, 2021 came into effect, they would take prospective parents to IVF hospitals and get a commission of Rs 25,000 per donor. They would not allow them to meet the sperm donor and recipient of the eggs. The accused would get the prospective parents to sign an agreement stating that they were family and usually targeted women in the 25-35 age group. After an incident that occurred in a hospital in Tamil Nadu came to light, it became tough for them and then they started targeting pregnant women who were coming for abortions.

The police commissioner said that on November 26, some children were being taken in a car in R R Nagar police station limits and the occupants were detained on grounds of suspicion and interrogated. They were trying to sell a 20-day-old newborn baby. The gang has sold 10 children so far.

Children were sold for lakhs and registration was done unofficially. Prominent doctors in Tamil Nadu are also involved in the racket. “Four hospitals in Tamil Nadu were involved in this and three of them have already been closed. This racket was going on in one hospital. They persuaded poor girls to become surrogate mothers. The doctors involved in illegal activities will be arrested soon”, Dayananda added.