The recent baby-selling racket — operating in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, and busted in Bengaluru — just expanded a lot. This is its backstory.
Mahalakshmi, the alleged mastermind of the baby-selling racket that was busted in Bengaluru in late-November. (Supplied)
Initially, as far as the police in Karnataka knew, 38-year-old Mahalakshmi was a worker at a garment factory from 2015 to 2017.
They gleaned from their sources and during her interrogation that the woman, who turned out to be a mother of five, earned ₹8,000 back then.
By the time sleuths from the Central Crime Branch (CCB) of the Bengaluru City Police arrested her in November, they were describing her as the mastermind of an illegal adoption racket.
The gang, initially said to be operating in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, had illegally sold babies and pocketed ₹8-10 lakh for each “transaction”! Since then, Mahalakshmi had risen through the ranks of the gang till her arrest.
What was shocking was the revelation that her “initiation” into the world of illegal adoption — according to police sources — happened through the sale of three of her own children!
Even more startling was the fact that two fresh arrests towards the end of November in connection with the racket revealed that the gang sold as many as 250 babies — as compared to the initial reports of a mere 10 — to childless parents.
From what the police learnt about Mahalakshmi, it can be surmised that she was approached sometime in 2017 by a woman who offered her ₹20,000 to be a surrogate mother, albeit illegally.
She acquiesced and eventually made a profession out of identifying women like her who needed money and would not be averse to earning it this way, police sources told South First.
She eventually became a prominent agent for the network, and pocketed sizeable commissions for each surrogate mother she found for it, added the sources.
From a worker at a garment factory in 2017, Mahalakshmi built a reputation over the years as a sought-after agent in the illegal surrogacy market, they said.
Such had been the “business” since then that she now owns a house, a car, and gold ornaments, said a senior police officer.
However, all that came crashing down when members of the CCB arrested her and seven others in late November in connection with the baby-selling case, having caught four of them red-handed as they tried to sell a baby to yet another childless couple.
The interrogation of all eight of those arrested threw up some shocking facts: Mahalakshmi and the gang had illegally sold at least 10 babies to childless couples.
But this paled in comparison with what came out following the arrest of two more people, which brought up the total number of detainees in the case to 10. The two new persons arrested have been identified as Kevin and Ramya.
Kevin, said to be in his 20s, facilitated in obtaining or actually obtained fake documents — such as original birth certificates and adoption papers — for the childless parents. He is an MBBS dropout and was working at a private clinic in the Rajarajeswari Nagar area in Bengaluru, the police said.
Ramya, on the other hand, was a member of the racket and — like Mahalakshmi — sold her own child to get into this network, the police officials told South First.
“We have arrested two more accused in the case, identified as Kevin and Ramya,” Deputy Commissioner of Police R Srinivas Gowda confirmed to South First.
Their interrogation revealed that the number of children racket had illegally placed with childless parents was not 10 but closer to 250!
Police sources have now said that around 50-60 of the babies were sold to childless parents in Karnataka, while the rest were sold to childless parents in Tamil Nadu and other states in South India.
May 13, 2024
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