Police arrest couple who bought baby for N30,000 in Anambra

A couple was detained by the Anambra State police for smuggling a one-month-old infant into the state from Lagos.

Following their arrest at Bridgehead Onitsha while travelling from Lagos into Anambra, the couple admitted to purchasing the child for N30,000. Their arrest came about as a result of a tip from another passenger.

In a press release by the spokesperson of the State Police Command, DSP Tochukwu Ikenga, he said: “The interception was made at Bridgehead in Onitsha on 17th December, 2023.

“The couple were travelling in a Luxury bus belonging to a popular transport company with the baby when a co-passenger observed that the mother could not breastfeed the baby despite its cry for food in the course of the journey.

“The good samaritan put a call through to Anambra Police on its Control Room hotline in Awka, which then relayed the information to the police at Bridgehead in Onitsha.

“The police laid in wait for the luxury bus and intercepted it in the evening hours. The couple and the baby were identified and brought down for questioning.

“They confessed buying the child from its mother in Ajah, Lagos for the sum of N30,000.”

Ikenga reported that CP Aderemi Adeoye, the Commissioner of Police, expressed gratitude to the civic-minded citizen for his concern.

He ordered that the baby be given to the Ministry of Women Affairs by the State Government for care, and that the couple be turned over to the National Agency for Prohibition in Trafficking of Persons, or NAPTIP, for additional investigation and prosecution.

Source