BANDUNG, July 21 — A woman who led a baby trafficking ring in Indonesia was sentenced Tuesday to seven years in prison, a judge said.
Lie Siu Luan, 70, was the leader of a group of 19 people accused of trafficking babies in Indonesia and Singapore.
She was found guilty of committing crimes “for the purpose of exploitation”, said presiding judge Gatot Ardian Agustriono.
The sentence was lower than prosecutors’ demand of 10 years for Lie, who previously told the Bandung district court in West Java province that she had sent at least 12 babies to Singapore.
According to the indictment, Lie trafficked a baby to Singapore for adoption in 2022, pocketing around S$17,000 (RM54,000).
Lie had decided against appealing the sentence, her lawyer Sendi Sanjaya told reporters.
“She accepted the decision,” Sendi said.
Another defendant, Astri Fitrinika, was found guilty of a similar charge and received six years and seven months in prison, Gatot added.
The court jailed the rest of the accused to terms ranging from three to six years.
Eight babies rescued by authorities were ordered to be placed in custody of a local orphanage, the court ruled.
The defendants were arrested last year after a parent reported a baby kidnapping to police in West Java province.
Investigators tracked down a suspect who confessed to having traded more than two dozen infants – some as young as three months old.
They were bought from people who did not want or could not afford to keep their babies.
Other children, rejected by would-be clients in Singapore, were sold domestically – including to adoptive parents in the capital, Jakarta.
Human trafficking is a problem in Indonesia, a sprawling nation of more than 17,000 islands.
In one of the worst cases in recent years, at least 57 people were found caged on a palm oil plantation in North Sumatra province in 2022. — AFP
