Kingpin, who sold kids to US-clients for Rs. 45L, arrested
The Mumbai police has arrested the kingpin of a child-trafficking racket who had been selling Indian kids to his clients in the US since 2007. The accused identified as Rajubhai Gamlewala took Rs. 45 lakh per child from his US-based clients. The number of trafficked kids is close to 300 but little is known as to what happened to them. Here are the details.
Unable to raise kids, families sold them to Gamlewala
Here is his modus operandi. After Gamlewala received orders from his clients, he used to look for kids. Most of them, aged between 11 and 16, came from poor families of Gujarat. Their parents sold them off as they were unable to look after them. Next, he would look for families that were ready to rent passports of their kids, especially those who had a resemblance to the 'bought' kids.
Before trafficking kids, make-up was applied on them
Gamlewala and co. would then pay someone to take the child to the States. But before that, make-up was applied on them to make them look similar to the children in the passports. Once the child was trafficked to the States, the passport was returned to its bearer. How the passport got stamped at immigration, is another question which the police hasn't answered yet.
An actress helped bust the racket
Notably, it was a call, which actress Preeti Sood received, that helped bust the racket. Sometime in March, her friend, sensing something was fishy, had called Sood to tell make-up was being applied on two kids at a Versova salon. When Sood approached the three men, who were instructing how to apply make-up, they said the kids were being sent to their families in the US. But Sood wasn't convinced.
Sood managed to alert police, Gamlewala and accomplices were arrested
Sood managed to stop two men and alerted the police. The third one escaped, though. Later, four (including a retired sub-inspector's son) were arrested. A WhatsApp number led police to Gamlewala, who was sent to police custody till August 18. Apparently, he was also arrested in 2007 for a passport forgery case. A case was registered under relevant sections of IPC.
