A couple has been arrested by the Anambra State Police Command for buying a one-month-old baby for N30,000.
The couple, who confessed to the crime after they were arrested said they were trafficking the baby into Anambra State from Lagos.
They were nabbed at Bridgehead Onitsha, while travelling into Anambra from Lagos, after a tip-off by a fellow passenger.
Confirming the development, the state Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), DSP Tochukwu Ikenga, 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.
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“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 said the Commissioner of Police, CP Aderemi Adeoye thanked the public spirited citizen for his concern.
The police image maker also said the CP directed that the couple be handed over to the National Agency for Prohibition in Trafficking of Persons, NAPTIP, for further investigation and prosecution, while the baby has been handed over to the Ministry of Women Affairs for care by the State Government.
He warned against illegal activities in the state, saying that the police will ensure that evil people are flushed out and sanity is restored back to the South Eastern state.