Sichuan Province police have busted a major crime ring involved in the trafficking of infants, arresting 78 suspected traffickers, according to authorities on Tuesday, as reported by China Daily.
Police also rescued 15 infants aged a few days to 1 year old that were trafficked by the crime ring, according to Liangshan Prefecture Public Security Department in Sichuan.
The infants that were rescued were temporarily placed at the Liangshan Prefecture Welfare Institute, where most of them are in stable condition, despite a few having pneumonia, colds and cough.
"We have taken the infants' blood samples and are preparing to match them with the blood DNA kept in a national database to help them to be reunited with their biological parents," said an anonymous police officer from the department.
In June, police reported that a 78-member gang, headed by a Tibetan villager in Liangshan, kidnapped the infants and brought them to Shandong Province for trafficking. According to police, the gang included the Tibetan villager's family members, friends and other fellow villagers.
Under the gang, the members were managed strictly and delegated different tasks, including trafficking infants, accommodation arrangements, transportation and seeking buyers, according to police.
The provincial police reported the disappearance of the infants to the Ministry of Public Security. The ministry then took over supervision of the case and told the Sichuan and Shangdong police to set up a special investigation team.
The team carried out a joint operation on Jan. 15 after a two-month-long investigation, where they arrested the members and effectively destroyed the trafficking ring.
Sixty-six of the suspects were arrested by police in Shandong, while another 12 were arrested in Liangshan.
Four officers brought 36 of the 66 suspects from Liangshan back to the prefecture from Shandong by train on Monday. The same train returned 15 abducted infants to Liangshan.
According to Chen Shiqu, director of the Anti-Human-Trafficking Department of the ministry's Criminal Investigation Department, "poverty is often the motive behind selling children in China's remote and rural areas, including Yunnan, Guizhou and Sichuan Provinces."
"Children are not commodities, and trafficking them is illegal," said Chen. "We will adopt zero tolerance toward such anti-social activity."