Investigators yesterday said they were looking for at least three people on suspicion of helping the owner of a Taipei clinic to sell babies and children.
Wang Jing-ming (王精明), the owner of the Taipei clinic, and his wife Chung Su-man (鐘素滿) have been detained since July on charges of trafficking in children.
Prosecutors from the Shilin District Prosecutors' Office yesterday raided two obstetrics and gynecology hospitals in Keelung County and Sinjhuang City in Taipei County. They questioned owners of the two hospitals on suspicion that they had been involved in the baby trading scandal, but released them without bail.
"At least three people are suspected of offering to provide Wang with babies and children from clinics nationwide. We believe more babies and children might have been traded than we have already found," an investigator of the case told the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times' sister paper) yesterday.
Investigators discovered a total of six babies and children in Wang's clinic when they raided it in July, but Wang denied that the babies and children had been purchased from parents who did not want them, or that he had sold children to other people.
Among those babies and children allegedly sold, the oldest was 10 years old, three were under the age of five and two were infants. The youngest was five months old.
The investigator said parents who did not want to raise their kids sold them cheaply to Wang, who then sold male infants for around NT$350,000 (US$10,630) each and female infants for about NT$280,000 each.
The Investigator estimated Wang made more than NT$10 million in illegal profits for the crimes over a ten year period.
Shilin prosecutors said Wang was sentenced to two years in prison 15 years ago for selling infants.
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