There were at least 21 babies stolen and a public appeal has been launched to find the parents of 11 babies who were saved from the crime ring, although police admit many may have been sold by their parents.
The infants, seven boys and
four girls who are around eight-months-old, are being looked after in a local
welfare home, while police have released photos of them to media in the
southern province of Yunnan.
Suspicions were aroused in
August last year after a police officer in the province came across a
middle-aged couple with non-local accents carrying a baby who appeared to be
about a month old.
When he questioned them, they
admitted buying the baby from traffickers, prompting an investigation that
eventually uncovered a vast network buying babies from remote villages and
bringing them to willing buyers.
Liang Yong, of the Kiayuan
police department, said: "By the early investigation, we identified a man
with surname" Gong" and a woman with surname "Du" as
middlemen.
"They bought and hired
young women to buy babies from remote villages in Wenshan and Gejiu, and sold
them to Shandong, Fujian and Henan provinces."
The babies' families were
reportedly paid up to 10,000 yuan (£1,033), and the infants were sold on for up
to 140,000 yuan.
Gong and a female suspect
named "Wang" were among 32 people arrested, many of whom were related
to each other in what police described as a tight-knit crime ring.
Police officer Yong said:
"The crime network shows that this kind of crime was committed by family
members or fellow-villagers who dragged one another into the ring.
"People outside the
circle were not allowed in, as they do not want other people to know anything
about it."
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