China mum sells off twin babies for $12,600, buys new phone

Blood may be thicker than water but for this mum in China, money trumps all — including her own children.

A single mother, known only as Ma, sold off her newborn twin boys in September last year for a total of 65,000 yuan (S$12,600), according to media reports.

The sale was only uncovered by local police recently in the course of investigations into a different case.

Ma, who is in her 20s and hails from Zhejiang province, claimed that she did it because she was "penniless and heavily in debt".

According to the woman, her parents had refused to help her because they were angry about the pre-marital pregnancy.

To make matters worse, the father of the twins, known only as Wu, reportedly refused to be responsible for the babies.

He was also nowhere to be found when they were born, only resurfacing to beg Ma to settle his debts after he heard that the twins had been sold off.

Ma decided to split the proceeds of the sale with Wu, using her share to pay off her credit card debts and to buy a new mobile phone.

By the time police arrested the pair, they had already spent all of the money.

Upon further investigation, police managed to track down the babies who had been sold to two couples in Anhui province, reuniting them with Ma's parents.

kimberlylim@asiaone.com