Moldova’s Embassy in Greece hasn’t yet received official information about Moldovans being involved or being victims in the case of trafficking in persons and human organs, the Ministry of Foreign Affair and European Integration said following reports about a case of trafficking in women, including Moldovans, in Greece, IPN reports.
The Ministry turned its attention to this case and made relevant approaches to the Greek authorities, waiting for official information.
According to the European Center for Legal Education and Research, nine persons accused of organizing illegal adoptions linked to an assisted reproduction clinic, were arrested in the city of Chania, Crete. Among the nine persons are a 73-year-old well-known gynecologist in Chania, doctors, clinic staff, a woman from Romania and two women from Georgia. Two women from Moldova are wanted.
Authorities on Crete are investigating a fertility clinic in the city of Chania amid suspicions that it may have operated as a front for an illegal adoption racket.
The local police said the network exploited mostly foreign women who were in a vulnerable position and used them as egg donors and surrogate mothers. Thirty young women from Romania, Ukraine, Moldova, Bulgaria, and Georgia were identified in Grete as victims of the network. The group also defrauded patients through virtual embryo transfers (in vitro) and brokering illegal adoptions.
The nine persons are facing charges of being members of a criminal organization, involved in human trafficking and illegal adoptions. The gynecologist is said to be the mastermind.