The officers of the Anambra State Police Command have arrested a couple suspected to be trafficking one-month-old baby from Lagos to Onitsha.
The Anambra State Police Public Relations Officer, DSP Tochukwu Ikenga, who disclosed this in a statement on Tuesday, said the interception was made at Bridgehead in Onitsha on Sunday, December 17, 2023.
Ikengwu noted that the couple was travelling in a luxury bus belonging to a popular transport company with the baby when a co-passenger observed that the mother could not breastfeed the baby despite its cry for food in the course of the journey.
He added: “The good samaritan put a call through to Anambra Police on its Control Room hotline in Awka which then relayed the information to the Police at Bridgehead in Onitsha.
“The Police laid in wait for the luxury bus described and intercepted it in the evening hours. The couple and the baby were identified and brought down for questioning.”
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The police spokesperson stated that the woman confessed buying the child from the mother in Ajah, Lagos State, for the sum of N30,000.
Ikenga further quoted the Anambra State Commissioner of Police, Aderemi Adeoye, as thanking the passenger for his humane concern in giving the information that led to the rescue of the child.
Adeoye also commended the police operatives for their vigilance and dedication to duty.
The police commissioner, however, directed that the couple be handed over to the National Agency for Prohibition in Trafficking of Persons (NAPTIP) for further investigation and prosecution.
Ikenga added that the baby had been handed over to the Anambra State Ministry of Women Affairs for care, pending investigation.
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