Baby racket trail leads to wealthy Madame

ByKumudini Hettiarachchi

Police sleuths are hot on the trail of a wealthy ‘Madame’ from Slave Island who is allegedly the mastermind in a massive baby-selling racket so far involving five babies and are now scrutinizing vital phone records to trace the most recent calls she may have made.

“We are checking phone records,” said a source at the Criminal Investigations Department (CID), after the Negombo Magistrate on Friday remanded four people while a nearly-month-old baby girl – in the eye of the storm of the baby-sale racket - was sent to a nutrition centre. The Slave Island “operations base” of the ‘Madame’ was raided, The Sunday Times learns, but she had fled.

Investigations have revealed that big money may have been involved in the racket with the modus operandi being for the well-dressed ‘Madame’ flaunting much gold, to visit the biological mothers who were in desperate straits and then pay them a pittance to close the deal. “Thereafter, the babies seem to have been sold for much higher amounts to others,” the source alleged. The CID source believes that in addition to the most recent sale which was uncovered last week, at least four more had taken place over the last year with the babies being smuggled abroad. One month ago a three-day baby girl and six months ago a two-day baby girl had also been sold while eight months ago a two-day baby boy and one year ago another two-day baby boy had been sold, each for Rs. 5,000, the source said, adding that all four “transactions” had taken place at the Castle Street Hospital.

Last Sunday, January 6, a mother and a daughter, were arrested along with a 21-day-old baby at the airport, just before they boarded a flight to Dubai. Later two more people -- a woman believed to be the biological mother of the baby and a labourer of the Castle Street Hospital for Women were nabbed.

The four who are now in remand are to be produced in court on January 25 after further investigation. The baby girl had been sent to the nutrition centre run by a well-known NGO through the National Child Protection Authority.

The duo arrested at the airport had allegedly paid Rs. 85,000 to the hospital labourer to get the baby girl, the CID source said, adding that the labourer had apparently persuaded the biological mother, an unwed young garment factory worker from Kelaniya, to hand over the baby on the grounds that she would be looked after well by a good family.

“The biological mother who is in her early twenties had not been given a cent,” the source said, explaining that most probably she may have fallen into trouble and would have been willing to part with the baby due to the circumstances she was in. The arrest of the hospital labourer had led the CID to the operations base of the ‘Madame’ and also resulted in the string of other baby-sales coming to light, The Sunday Times understands.

The only difference in the most recent baby sale and the other transactions was that it had taken place at the home of the biological mother who had given birth to the baby at the De Soysa Maternity Home. When contacted, Assistant Superintendent of Police Mevan Silva of the CID Unit at Katunayake said investigations are being conducted under his instructions. Meanwhile, Attorney-at-Law Asela Rekawa, who appeared for the two women arrested at the airport, said he told court on Friday that this was a “pathetic” case and in no way can be linked to baby-snatching or kidnapping.

One of his clients (the younger woman) married for 12 years and living in Dubai for the past eight years was an accountant while her husband was an electrical engineer. “They had undergone numerous tests and she had several operations because they were desperate to have a baby,” Mr. Rekawa had told court, adding that he had all the medical records to prove this. So when someone said they could arrange an adoption, they took up the offer, he said, adding that it may have been “irregular”. The baby was being taken on a valid passport, but there were issues about the birth certificate.

He told The Sunday Times that he objected to court as his clients had been produced under Section 45 C of the Immigration and Emigration Act where they had been categorized as “organizers or facilitators” and could get bail only from the High Court. His clients were “passengers” who may have aided and abetted a child to travel, he had informed court, explaining that they were preparing to file adoption papers for the baby in the District Court.