Baby-trafficking ring busted

Bulgarian police said yesterday they had arrested six people suspected of paying and blackmailing poor young women into selling their newborn babies in Greece.

Police said the five men and one woman took 13 soon-to-be mothers to Greece, where they gave up their babies after giving birth. In many cases, labour was induced early to cut costs for their stay, police said in a statement.

They said the suspects either offered to pay €1,500-€3,000 per child or extended loans to pregnant women's families at high rates and forced the mothers to give up their babies when they could not pay them back.

"The young Bulgarian women, mainly from poor and large families, were forced to sell their babies through economic blackmail," the police said.

After the mothers gave birth, they were forced to work for up to three months to finance their stay and then agree in court to give her child to its "new Greek parents".

The Greek families offered around €15,000 for a baby girl and more for a boy, police said.

Last October the French police said they had found at least five babies sold by a Bulgarian trafficking ring and arrested several French couples who lied to adopt them.