Stealing Babies for Adoption

Yuan Baishun, a lawyer for one of those sentenced in the case -- Chen Ming, director of the Hengdong County orphanage in Hengyang -- said none of the 70-plus baby girls whose cases were presented by prosecutors was abducted. Rather, Yuan said, they were abandoned and then sold in transactions brokered by a woman named Liang Guihong, who lived in southwestern Guangdong.

"Old Lady Liang was quite well known locally for being warm-hearted and taking care of abandoned babies," Yuan said.

According to Yuan, in 2001, another of those sentenced, Duan Meilin, brought some of the babies to the Changning County Social Welfare Institute, an orphanage in Hengyang eligible to conduct foreign adoptions. Over subsequent years, Liang and Duan together transferred as many as 1,000 babies to orphanages in Hengyang, Yuan said.

Duan's attorney, Zhu Xiaoyun, confirmed that his client participated in the sales but said none of the children had been abducted. Duan's mother, Chen Zhiding, said her son received about $36 for each baby. An attorney for Liang, who was also sentenced, declined to comment.

But sources familiar with the investigation said many children were abducted. The court ruled that the director of the Hengdong County orphanage "was cognizant of the fact that he had purchased babies that had been abducted," according to the verdict, which was read to The Washington Post. The directors of the six Hengyang county orphanages conspired with local Civil Affairs bureaus to concoct police reports asserting that the babies had been abandoned, according to the prosecution source and defense attorneys.

Before 2004, the Hengyang County orphanage was not eligible for the foreign adoption program, so it sold as many as 30 healthy babies a month to participating local orphanages for about $1,000 each, according to a prosecution source and defense attorneys. Neighbors said they were awakened at night by the sounds of crying babies, as groups of six to 12 were loaded into a van and taken away.

The Hengdong County orphanage placed 288 babies for foreign adoption from October 2002 to November 2005, according to a log book described by defense attorneys. The Changning County orphanage placed about 250 babies for foreign adoption over the same period, the sources said.

In the fall of 2004, the Hengyang County orphanage gained the right to participate in foreign adoptions. U.S. officials refused to disclose the number of visas issued to children adopted by American families through that institution. According to Stuy, the researcher, listings of abandoned children in the provincial newspaper suggest that foreign adoptions from that orphanage ranged between zero and 10 a month for most of 2005, then spiked to 29 in October.

Under whose roofs those children now sleep remains a mystery.

In a written statement, officials at the U.S. Embassy said they immediately sought a report from the CCAA in November, after the arrests. The CCAA assured them that "the matter was being properly handled," but rebuffed requests for details while the case was being prosecuted. U.S. officials said they would seek further meetings.

Great Wall, the Texas-based adoption agency, has placed many children from Hengyang orphanages in American homes. It declined to say whether it has found evidence of trafficker involvement in any of its adoptions.

As Stacie Toering grows up in Michigan, she and her parents may never know whether she was really abandoned on Fengao Street in Hengyang County early on an October morning when she was 2 months old, as the police report states, or whether she was sold or was pried from the arms of her mother.

"This is just a horrible thing, just sickening," Gordon Toering said. "If we can't bring closure to it, we're just going to have to live with it."

Special correspondent Eva Woo contributed to this report.