Cops warn vs baby-for-sale gang

MANILA, Philippines - The Manila Police District (MPD) is warning the public against entertaining strangers who offer freebies to lactating mothers, saying they could be members of a syndicate that kidnaps newborn babies and offers them for sale to rich, childless couples.

The MPD issued the warning following the abduction of a four-day-old baby girl from her mother at a Manila mall Thursday.

The infant’s mother, Angelina Bico, 23, of Sta. Cruz, Manila told police a woman introduced by her neighbor enticed her to go to the mall in Lawton for a free foot spa in exchange for an interview for a school project on lactating mothers.

She said she left her three-year-old daughter and her baby with the suspect while she had a foot spa at a beauty center located at the mall’s basement. The suspect said she would just take the children to a fastfood restaurant at the first floor of the mall.

Bico said she did not finish her foot spa when she sensed something wrong. When she went to the restaurant, the suspect and her baby were gone and only her three-year-old daughter was left alone eating.

She described the suspect as between 20 and 25 years old, at least 4’11” tall, chubby and with shoulder-length hair.

A receptionist of the beauty center told police the suspect even claimed the baby was hers while filling up a form for the foot spa treatment while Bico was outside the parlor.

Meanwhile, investigators lamented the refusal of the mall’s security personnel to have police officers view its closed-circuit television (CCTV) camera footage.

“The CCTV footage taken between 9 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. on Thursday is our only hope to identify the suspect. However, (the mall administrator)… denied its access to us, claiming their CCTV is exclusively for internal purposes only,” said Chief Inspector Anita Araullo, chief of the Women and Children Protection Desk of the Manila Police District.

Araullo believes the syndicate will sell the kidnapped baby.         – Nestor Etolle