MOSCOW, February 25 (RIA Novosti) – A mother and daughter have been arrested in the northern Russian city of St. Petersburg for attempting to sell the daughter’s newborn baby, prosecutors said Tuesday.
Rokhilakhon Yusupova, 50, and her 24-year-old daughter Maftuna tried to sell the latter’s three-day-old baby boy last week for 80,000 rubles ($2,250), prosecutors said in a statement.
The older woman negotiated the deal and was detained by police in a sting operation immediately after accepting payment for the infant, the statement said.
Investigators said the baby is currently being kept at a medical institution.
Prosecutors have opened a criminal case into child-trafficking. If charged and convicted, the women, whom prosecutors identified as unemployed nationals of Uzbekistan, face up to 10 years in jail.
A woman in the central Russian city of Ulyanovsk wanted considerably more cash for her youngest son, whom she attempted to sell for 1.2 million rubles ($34,000), prosecutors said Tuesday in a statement.
Prosecutors said the 24-year-old woman and a gang of three men would go on trial for attempting to sell one of the woman’s three sons, aged one, to another local woman last year.
They have been charged with attempting to sell a minor as an organized group, and face up to 15 years in prison, the statement said.
