Parents arrested for putting baby up for sale on Craigslist

Recently a listing on Craigslist for a baby girl for $10,000 prompted calls to the police. The ad read “A new baby girl, seven days old, healthy and very cute,” read the ad. “Can’t afford and unexpected. Looking for a good home. Please call ASAP.”

Within hours of her call, officers tracked the number of a stolen cellphone listed in the ad to an apartment in downtown Vancouver.

When officers arrived, they found four adults inside, including the 26-year-old father and the 23-year-old mother breastfeeding the baby. Police didn’t identify the couple.

“Of course, the first thing out of their mouth is, they said it was just a hoax,” Const. Tim Fanning, of the Vancouver Police Department, told a news conference on Tuesday.

“Only they know whether it was truly a hoax or not. If they had a viable bite from somebody that came, who knows what could have happened.”

The baby’s parents were initially arrested and later released, though police say they are still contemplating charges.

The baby was removed from the home, but the provincial children’s minister wouldn’t say where the child was Tuesday.

The woman who first came across the ad said she was horrified when she saw it, even though she assumed it was a fake.

“I was shaking, and I thought, ‘Come on, how did this even get through?”‘ Marilyn Bateman, a 62-year-old grandmother of five living in Pitt Meadows, B.C., said in an interview.

A spokeswoman for Craigslist didn’t answer questions about the specific case, but said the website takes steps to ensure users aren’t breaking the law.

“Misuse of Craigslist for illegal purposes is absolutely unacceptable to us, and we will work together with law enforcement until the perpetrators have been brought to justice,” Susan Best, a spokeswoman for the San Francisco-based site, said in an e-mail.

“Craigslist is an extremely unwise choice for committing crime, since criminals inevitably leave an electronic trail to themselves that law enforcement officers will follow.”

Read More