Police Smash Calabar Based Child Trafficking Syndicates In Onitsha, Recover Four Children

Posted by African Examiner Featured, Ignatius Okpara, Latest Headlines Saturday, March 1st, 2014

Ignatius Okpara, Enugu

The police in Anambra have apprehended a Calabar based woman child trafficker, and her syndicates in Onitsha.

African Examiner gathered that the woman whose identity was concealed by the police, had been in the unholy business of stealing and selling children for quite some time.

It was gathered that after allegedly stealing the kids from Calabar, she will ferry them to the commercial city of Onitsha, where she will sell them to already waiting customers via syndicates.

However, luck ran out of two members of the syndicate when they were arrested by policemen attached to the Okpoko police division at the Akwa Ibom Park, along Onitsha-Owerri road axis, following a tip- off.

The arrest of the two-syndicate members according to police sources in Anambra, also led to the nabbing of the key culprit.

Police investigation revealed that the woman was in Onitsha, to sell two babies she allegedly stole from Calabar.

Meanwhile, police said its investigation, led to the arrest of another woman suspect who is also a member of the syndicate by operatives of the Special Anti Robbery Squad, (SARS), attached to Okpoko police Division at Calabar motor park, Onitsha-Owerri road.

According to one of the eyewitnesses who simply gave his name as Obinna, the Calabar based woman, was a regular visitor to the park, adding that she always come to the park on weekly basis with different children after which she will return to Calabar leaving those children behind in Onitsha.

Obinna further hinted that one of the woman’s trip that attracted the interests of the workers of the park was the day she came into the park in a vehicle belonging to the Transport Company of Anambra State, TRACAS with a new born baby with stain of blood.

“The lady comes to the park almost every week, at times two weeks interval and we discovered that each time she appeared, she had two or three children mostly day old and one week old children.

“There was a day she carried a baby with stain of blood showing that the child was just delivered. “So today she came in with TRACAS bus from Calabar and because we have been monitoring her, she had two children when she came; but when she finished her business, she resurfaced again to board a bus back to Calabar without those two kids, that was when we confirmed our suspicion and invited the police”

He also disclosed that another thing that raised suspicion over the movement of the suspect included the fact that each time she visited Onitsha with different children under the ages of 2 to one day old, she never went back with such children, a situation he said could not be unconnected to child trafficking.

Meanwhile, it was gathered that upon interrogation according to a police source who pleaded anonymity, the suspects who are citizens of Calabar confessed that they have been in the business of ferrying children from the area to Onitsha for some years now.

According to the suspects, the two children they came to sell in the commercial city of Onitsha were a baby boy of 1 month and a baby girl of 2 months whom they confessed were sold to their buyers at Umunya, Oyi council area of Anambra state.