Local police in the Chechen capital of Grozny found that a women arrested Wednesday for selling her child is a repeat offender, according to the Interior Ministry’s press service.
Before being arrested for attempting to sell an infant to a police officer for $18,500, the woman, a 60-year-old local hospital worker, was found by Russia’s Investigative Committee to have run a business with another women seeking potential buyers.
According to the Interior Ministry, the woman most recently sold a one-year-old girl in the Dagestani city of Khasavyurt for $13,000 on September 30.
Police also said the women charged on average about $11,000 for a girl, and $16,000 for a boy – as well as an extra $5,000 for the official documents.
They added that the five-day-old infant the women tried to sell to the police officer had been taken from a hospital in the Dagestani capital of Makhachkala. Investigators are currently searching for the parents who they believe may be implicit in the crime.
Russia’s Criminal Code stipulates a 15-year prison sentence for child trafficking.