Two new defendants have been added to the list of those being prosecuted for involvement in the ring of illegal adoptions and egg trading, the dismantling of which was announced in September 2019 by EL.AS., following a months-long investigation by the Prosecution of Organized Crime of Thessaloniki with the code name “Leto”.

She is a lawyer and a doctor which works with an assisted reproduction clinic. Their names were later included in the voluminous case file after police processed hundreds of transcribed phone conversations. Information indicates that the two in particular are named in the conversations that their co-accused had and that is why they became accused.

Under these circumstances, criminal proceedings were brought against them and they were asked to apologize to the investigator handling the case. They denied any connection with the alleged activity of the ring and were released with the agreement of the prosecutor and investigator.

As “protagonists” of the criminal organization described in the case file are two of their colleagues, a lawyer and a doctor (gynecologist). They were arrested, along with ten other people – “brokers”, and released on probation and bail.

The police investigation had uncovered an entire “industry” of illegal adoptions and egg trafficking. According to the official announcements of EL.AS. the ring exploited the poverty and vulnerability of women, usually extradited and originally from neighboring Bulgaria, and used them as surrogate mothers and egg donors.

In the case file dozens of cases of illegal adoptions of babies and women are included from which the eggs were extracted. The cost of the illegal private adoption seems to have ranged up to 28,000 euros, sums covered by the foster parents (childless Greek couples), while the “price list” varied according to the gender of the child (biological mothers received a fee of up to 5,000 euros). Equally “gold-bearing” seems to have been the ring’s involvement in egg trade, in which defendants – members of the ring subjected women to special treatment in private clinics in Thessaloniki, in order to extract the eggs, for a monetary fee.

The illegal profit allegedly obtained by the circuit is estimated to exceed 500,000 euros. The voluminous case file is still in the hands of the investigator and after the completion of the main investigation it will be forwarded to the competent Judicial Council to decide which of the involved persons will be referred to trial.