Gondomar couple arrested for international child trafficking

Investigations continue to try and discover real parents of couple’s ‘non-related’ baby

PJ police have arrested a couple in their 40s, living in Gondomar, on suspicion of international child trafficking.

The duo walked into a family health unit in their city around a year ago with a baby girl who, they said, they wanted to ‘integrate into their household’ and start on the required round of vaccinations.

The infant had no identity documents: the story being that she was the daughter of a woman who had had an affair with the man, and who did not want her.

He and his wife had decided to bring her up as their own child, said the couple.

“At the time, the suspects claimed the baby had been born in October 2022, in Spain”, says a statement by the PJ.

But because they could show no identity document/ no proof of adoption/ not even a record of the baby’s birth, “the baby was not accepted at the USF”.

What hasn’t been explained is why the couple was allowed to walk out of the USF with the baby.

But the PJ statement goes on to explain that “two months later, in May 2023, the couple returned to the health unit, but this time they showed the child’s ID card, which showed the child as their daughter with a date of birth of December 20, 2022” (ie two months AFTER the original date of birth given).

By this time authorities’ misgivings must have peaked. The PJ statement explains that “DNA tests carried out during the investigation by the PJ’s Northern Directorate ‘allowed them to unequivocally conclude that the baby is not the daughter of either member of the couple’. At that point (again, not chronologically explained) “the child was handed over to a foster home”.

The PJ statement adds that the man of the couple, aged 45, has a criminal record for crimes of theft and robbery.

He and his wife/ partner, aged 42, were finally arrested yesterday, for the crimes of trafficking in persons for adoption, false declarations and falsifying and/ or counterfeiting documents.

Investigations are continuing with authorities in Spain “with a view to fully clarifying the facts and establishing the criminal responsibility of all those involved in the case”, concludes the PJ statement.

Source: PJ/ LUSA