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SCMP Reporter

Police are investigating a suspected baby-trading scam after a posting offering twins for adoption appeared on a popular website for expatriates in Hong Kong.
The message was posted on GeoExpat.com  by a woman claiming to be the disabled mother of the twins. She said she wanted them to have a good home and family. 
It read, 'Adoption - very handsome beautiful baby boy and girl', and included pictures of the twins. It appeared alongside items for sale such as tables and sofas, with a 'best offer' asking price. 
The posting had been viewed 1,200 times since Sunday before it was deleted yesterday after being reported to the police.
A Social Welfare Department spokesman said it was illegal for any person apart from the department's director or the city's three accredited bodies to arrange adoptions of children. Any person found guilty of  the offence  is liable to a fine of between HK$50,000 and HK$100,000 and six months' imprisonment.  
Police are investigating the case, a spokeswoman said yesterday. Unlawful transfers of possession, custody or control of other people for financial gain is an offence that carries a two-year jail term under the Offences Against the Person Ordinance,  the spokeswoman said.
The message was posted by an anonymous woman claiming to be a disabled student in Chung Hom Kok.  'I need someone with best intentions to adopt/give my babies a good family, home/lifestyle. The babies are in excellent health conditions with good weights, encouraging medical reports and are very playful,' she said in the message.
She said it had not been an easy decision to give up her twins but wanted to give them, 'a very lovely home and family'.  But the message was posted in the website's 'free stuff' category and asked for the 'best offer' for the babies, who were listed as in 'excellent' condition.
May Ohlmeyer, a frequent user of the site who saw the posting on Tuesday morning as she browsed for baby items for her son, described it as 'disturbing' and 'distressing'.
'I  felt really, really shocked when I saw that message.  It's like  they [the babies] are some objects for sale,' Ohlmeyer said. 'It seems very bizarre.' She reported the case to police via e-mail and also alerted GeoExpat. The police responded that day.
Shriram Chaubal, the chief operating officer of GeoExpat, said yesterday he was working with police on the case and that he suspected the message - which he had found on other overseas websites - was part of a global scam to extort money. 
Chaubal said scammers operating out of African countries such as Nigeria used proxy servers in countries including the US and Britain to post messages on overseas websites. But it was the first time he had seen a child adoption scam on the site.  
'We rely on the users to check. As we come up with 400 ads and a thousand messages per day, there is no way  we can check everything. We take action after we receive a report,' Chaubal said. Bogus messages are usually deleted by the site's administrator and  the IP addresses blocked after complaints are received.
Only the Social Welfare Department and three accredited bodies - the International Social Service, Mother's Choice and Po Leung Kuk - can provide child adoption services in Hong Kong.
Social Welfare had received 106 local and 24 overseas applications for adoption in 2009, and 28 local and five overseas in the first quarter.
Cho Wing-chong, supervisor of adoption services at Mother's Choice, said she was shocked by the website posting. 
'It's very bad to target families who want to adopt a child. They are usually worried and feel anxious  when they apply for adoption  and could easily fall into  this trap,' Cho said. 
She urged families to contact government and accredited bodies if they had any queries about  adoption.



Police probe suspected baby-trading scam