KHABAROVSK, November 9 (RIA Novosti) – A woman from Russia’s Far Eastern Khabarovsk Territory was sentenced to three years in prison for attempting to sell her five-year-old son, regional prosecutor’s office said on Friday.
In February, 28-year-old Yulia Savchenko agreed to sell her son for 300,000 rubles ($9,500), a steep discount from the 800,000 rubles she had originally demanded. An undercover police officer acted as buyer.
Savchenko, who was arrested after she accepted the money and put the boy in the buyer’s car, showed no interest in why an unknown man wanted to buy her child.
She pleaded guilty in court and admitted that she planned to spend the money on personal needs.
“The court found Savchenko guilty of attempting to sell a person and sentenced her to three years in a general security penal colony,” prosecutors said in a statement.
A number of attempts to sell children have been thwarted in the past few months. On October 31, a 61-year-old woman who worked at a maternity ward and her 60-year-old accomplice were detained while trying to sell a five-day-old baby for $18,500.
An investigation revealed that the woman was a repeat offender. According to the Interior Ministry, she had sold a one-year-old girl in the Dagestani city of Khasavyurt for $13,000 as recently as September 30.
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.