The Hanoi People’s Court on Tuesday sentenced a man and his sister-in-law to five and four years in prison respectively for buying a baby.

 

Newswire VnExpress reported that the city police caught Ngo Thi Sang of the Central Highlands’ Province of Gia Lai in January last year as she was carrying a baby around ten days old, and failed to explain where it was from.

 

Nguyen Van Hai, her brother-in-law, was arrested later when he came to pick up Sang and the baby.

 

Hai said at the court that he was doing charity work by bringing the baby to an infertile couple in Thai Nguyen Province near Hanoi. But he failed to provide proper information about the adopters.

 

Investigations found that Hai was informed of the baby by a woman named Tran Thi Phuong Loan from Ho Chi Minh City.

 

Earlier Hai had asked Loan to notify him when someone wanted to sell their babies. Loan charged VND40 million ($1,940) for each baby she found.

 

According to investigators, Hai had transferred nearly VND270 million to Loan’s bank account on 12 different occasions.

 

It’s still not known how many babies Loan and Hai had already traded in before the latter was caught. Loan is still at large and wanted by the police.

 

The court said it would put Loan and Hai in a different trial.