Investigators exposed a gang that abducted children under the guise of guardianship employees: they sold them all over the country

The kidnapping of a child is a terrible crime, which, even in our crazy time, rarely anyone dares. Only a recent sad story pops up in memory in Dedovsk near Moscow, where a woman, desperate to get pregnant, stole a baby from a maternity hospital and raised her as her own. Single cases of kidnapping are usually the work of crazy outcasts, and such crimes are solved in a matter of days.

All the more surprising is the story that the investigators of the Investigative Committee in the Rostov Region recently managed to unravel. There, child trafficking was actually put on stream! Fraudsters, under the guise of guardianship officers, took away three children from two mothers of large families, and later sold the babies to gypsy families. All criminals are detained, all children are returned to their legitimate parents.

The details of this surprising case for today were told by the deputy head of the first department for the investigation of especially important cases of the Investigative Committee of the Investigative Committee of Russia for the Rostov Region, Lieutenant Colonel of Justice Daria Mironova.

“If you misbehave, I’ll give it to another uncle.” Such a horror story is probably remembered by many born in the USSR. Many years have passed, but nothing has changed: “strange uncles” are still scaring naughty kids in small towns. Only in our case, this strange stereotype unexpectedly turned out to be a bitter truth.

It all started in 2021 in the city of Shakhty, Rostov Region. A certain unemployed citizen once, in a conversation with his friend, a realtor, dreamed: it would be nice to earn “easy” money. It was then that they came up with a wild idea – to take away a child from a mother of many children, who could be profitably sold. And the task is not difficult, and the money is good – the accomplices decided. It remained to find buyers. Through distant relatives, the man found buyers for the child. People were ready to buy a child. Not to adopt, not to take under guardianship, namely to buy, as an expensive beautiful thing.

The victim was also found quickly. Not so long ago, a realtor helped two women with many children to purchase apartments for maternity capital. One of them at that time had 5 children, and almost all of them were from different fathers. An illiterate woman blindly trusted her friend and turned to her for any questions. She became the first target of criminals. “Why does she need so many children, she can take one away,” apparently, the broker reasoned like that. A simple and extremely cynical plan was devised – to take the child away under the guise of guardianship authorities. Say, the situation in the house is unimportant, my mother can not cope, there is no father. We needed a third character who could play the role of a dummy guardian. They became an acquaintance of the enterprising organizer of the scam. The attacker called a friend from Voronezh and offered to earn extra money – introduce himself as an employee of government agencies and seize the child.

Surprisingly, the criminal scheme worked! A fake guardian came to a mother of many children. Without showing any documents, he simply took away a 10-month-old boy. The frustrated mother immediately called a familiar realtor, and she began to convince her that nothing terrible was happening. She persuaded the woman not to make a fuss, assuring that someday in a wonderful future, her son would be returned.

Relatives of the buyers immediately flew to Rostov-on-Don to pick up the child, taking with them someone else’s birth certificate. For this deal, the trinity of swindlers received 800 thousand rubles. The buyers turned out to be wealthy gypsy spouses from the Sverdlovsk region. They really wanted to take on the upbringing of a little boy, but they did not succeed in having children on their own.

After the first successful transaction, the scammers got a taste. From his distant relatives, the villain learned about another family that wanted to buy a boy. The parents already had 6 girls, and they really wanted a son. And the real estate agent looked after another victim – also a mother of many children, whom she again helped with the purchase of an apartment. The woman raised three children alone. This time, the fraudster herself came to a friend and whispered a secret: guardianship will come to you soon, beware! Since there was something to complain about in this house, the guest offered to temporarily hide her youngest 3-year-old son, allegedly with her relatives. The unfortunate woman trusted the deceiver and easily gave her the child, collecting the boy’s things and toys for the journey. His swindlers took him by car to the Samara region, having received 320 thousand rubles for the sale of the child.

And five days later, guardianship really came to the same unfortunate mother. Only – here’s the trick – again fake! It was the same visit the real estate agent had warned about. And again, the gullible woman was circled around her finger, confusing her head with formal nit-picking. Completely confused mother gave away her 7-year-old son. This child was taken by crooks to the Saratov region and sold for 180 thousand rubles to spouses who wanted to take the boy to raise.

Investigator Daria Mironova says:

– How did you manage to reveal the very fact of the abduction of children?

The mother of a 10-month-old son contacted the police. Prior to that, for a long time she asked for help to return her child to a female realtor she knew. She fed her “breakfasts”, and then one of this trio of deceivers let slip to her, he just felt sorry for his mother. He simply told the woman that a friend had sold her son. Realizing that the child would not be returned to her, the mother wrote a statement.

When real guardians came to the second deceived mother, whose two sons were stolen, she said that the children were with relatives. And when they began to understand, it turned out that the boys had simply been kidnapped.

– How did the criminals manage to convince women with many children that they are connected with the guardianship authorities and their duties include the removal of children from dysfunctional families?

– Women did not work anywhere, lived on benefits, they have many children who grew up without fathers. The mother of three children was registered with the bank for families in a socially dangerous situation. So the appearance of guardianship officers was a common thing for the victims.

For persuasiveness, the criminals gave the mothers to sign several papers, among which were notarized consents for the children to stay in other families. With these documents, they tried to legitimize their machinations and wanted to protect themselves, realizing that they were doing lawlessness.

– In what conditions were children kept in foreign families? Maybe they were forced to beg? What did the kids say then?

– In foster families, children were generally treated normally, they were not forced to beg. Most likely, the boys did not fully understand what happened.

– How long did children live in foreign families?

– The smallest six months – it was sold in November, and the rest of the brothers for two months, they were sold right before the New Year, on December 25 and 30, 2021.

During interrogation, the kidnapper confessed to everything, but the cunning realtor to the last denied participating in this crime. The fraudster, who played the role of a dummy guardian, made a deal with the investigation and laid out all the details of the criminal scheme with the addresses and names of the buyers. Now all swindlers are taken into custody pending trial, they are charged under two articles of the Criminal Code, these are “Kidnapping of children” (punishment up to 12 years in prison) and “Child trafficking” (up to 10 years in prison). Buyers of live goods are also accused of committing a crime, they also face up to 10 years in prison. At the moment, two of the four buyers of a 10-month-old baby and a woman who bought a seven-year-old boy have been detained. The rest were put on the wanted list – having learned about the persecution, they went on the run.

The editors of “MK” thanks the press service of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation for their help in preparing the material and congratulates the department on the upcoming Day of the investigative officer of the Russian Federation.