Child returned as abductor is arrested

By Xu Fang  |   2008-11-21  |     NEWSPAPER EDITION

A WOMAN who allegedly broke into a home and snatched a 5-month-old baby intending to sell him was arrested yesterday.

The child was traced seven days after the kidnapping in September and returned to his parents.

Minhang District prosecutors charged Jin Changyun, a Henan Province native, with attempting to sell a child. Her alleged accomplice Shen Linjun, an Anhui Province native, is at large, according to authorities.

Prosecutors said this is the first such case in the city where a child has been snatched from his home before his mother's eyes.

Jin, 26, ran a small grocery store in the suburbs and was friendly with a woman surnamed Dong. In September, Dong told Jin in jest that it was good business to steal babies and sell them for a neat profit, and Jin apparently liked the idea, prosecutors said.

A few days later, she allegedly told her friend Shen, who was in need of money, that it would be a good idea to grab an infant and sell it off. She instructed Shen to look out for suitable targets.

On September 23, Shen called Jin to tell her he had found a family at Tongxin residential community where the wife was alone at home with the baby, according to authorities.

Jin allegedly went to the site, knocked on the victim's door and pretended to be a new neighbor. As soon as the woman opened the door, Shen stepped in and overpowered her, grabbing the boy from a bed and rode away in a car, prosecutors said.

But the plan went awry when the kidnappers couldn't find a buyer.

Jin then told Dong that the baby had been abandoned by his parents and she wanted to sell him, according to prosecutors. Dong reportedly warned her that this was illegal but promised to help solve the problem.

Police eventually learned about the child and traced the boy back to his parents. Jin and Dong were soon detained, but Dong was released because she wasn't part of the kidnapping.