ACCRA, Ghana — An American couple who used their popular blog to chronicle
their journey to adopt four children from Ghana were detained and their two
biological children placed in a local orphanage over the weekend after
authorities suspected them for child trafficking, officials said Tuesday.

Sol and Christine Moghadam from Irvine, California, had traveled to Ghana
with their two biological sons after their application to adopt the four
siblings had been approved, according to their blog. An adoption agency official
said the family was later reunited and the couple cleared to leave the country
with their biological children, although their newly adopted kids will need to
await their visas.

They were stopped Friday at Kotoka International Airport where they tried to
board a flight with the four children, whom they had adopted from the city of
Kumasi, located 160 miles (250 kilometers) northwest of Accra, police in Ghana
confirmed.

Kyle Tresch, a vice president for the adoption agency Dillon International
Inc., said the couple had already obtained a court order that made them the
legal guardians of the four Ghanaian children and were waiting for the U.S.
government to approve visas for them when the incident occurred.

They were taken into custody after the government received a phone call from
an anonymous tipster who accused them of child trafficking, according to a
statement posted on the website of AdoptTogether, an advocacy group that
produced a video of the couple's adoption process.

"I can tell you that we are investigating a couple who arrived at the airport
with six children — four blacks and two whites — which aroused the suspicion of
security officers at the airport who stopped them from traveling," Comfort Miah,
an official with the Anti-Human Trafficking Unit of the Ghanaian police, told
The Associated Press. "They say the children were adopted and we are
investigating to find out if this has been properly granted by a court of proper
jurisdiction."

On their blog and in a video created on their behalf, the couple and their
friends say Christine Moghadam was forced to spend a night in jail on Friday,
while Sol Moghadam was held in a detention center. Their two biological children
were placed in an orphanage.

The couple had to post a bond for their release, and their passports were
returned to them on Monday, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said at
a media briefing in Washington on Tuesday.

Tresch said that as of Tuesday, all six children were with the couple. The
couple, he said, was free to leave Ghana, though they will need to wait for
visas to be processed before the adopted siblings can leave. Attempts to reach
the couple through their blog and through Facebook were not immediately
successful.

Frank Kwofie, director of operations for the police's criminal investigations
department, confirmed that the family had provided documentation.

"The couple had documentation, but we have had cases where such documentation
is fraudulent, so we are having it verified," he said.

On their blog, the couple described the toll of the ordeal: "We are
emotionally exhausted and traumatized from the entire incident," they posted on
Tuesday. "Our case is not complete yet but our chief officer from the Ghana
police department has apologized for their overreaction and stated that our
detainment was a mistake on their part. Although we have many pending
circumstances before uniting our family, we have complete trust in God that He
will provide a way out and heal our family from this traumatic situation."

Their blog, "Our adoption journey to Africa," has received 47,600 page views
and supporters posted dozens of messages of encouragement. The couple began the
application process in 2010, initially petitioning to adopt a child in Ethiopia.
They were steered to Ghana in November 2011, after they saw the four siblings on
the waiting list of the adoption agency. The blog's timeline states that they
received final approval in April.

"The paperwork was all in place," said Tresch of the adoption agency. "This
is a situation that has never happened in the 40 year history of our
agency."

___

Associated Press writer Laura Burke in Accra, Ghana, Amy Taxin in Tustin,
California, and Bradley Klapper in Washington contributed to this report.
Callimachi contributed from Dakar, Senegal

___

June 26, 2012 11:55 PM EDT

Copyright 2012, The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may
not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.