San Diego: Babies for Sale

Babies for Sale

The first break in the case came, oddly, in Dover, Ark., in the July arrest of a publisher who was charged with counterfeiting adoption documents. Then last week the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service sprang a trap on a mother-daughter team described as the key dealers in a baby-smuggling ring that may have sold as many as 150 infants to American couples in the past two years. Juanita Leyva-Vargas, 52, and her daughter Melinda, 25, were arrested in San Diego after they handed a five-day-old Mexican infant to Phil and Linda Phillips of Kalama, Wash. Authorities said the baby dealers operated...

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