Grandmother Arrested for Selling Five Year-Old Boy for Organs

Source: Vancouver Sun

Date: November 27, 2000

Ryazan, Russia - At first sight it could have been a carefree family outing. Five-year-old Andrei Tkachyov could barely contain his excitement as he left home last month with his grandmother and uncle, dressed in his best clothes and with his hair well combed. They told him they were going to Disneyland. Less than an hour later Andrei's grandmother, Nina Tkachyova, 55, and his uncle, Sergei Tkachyov, 30, were seized by plain-clothes policemen. They were accused of trying to sell the boy to an officer posing as a trafficker in human organs. A police video shows the pair pocketing $140,000 Canadian after handing over Andrei, together with his birth certificate and medical records and a document in which his mother officially renounced all claims on him. Andrei sits alone, sobbing. ``At first I simply couldn't believe this,'' said Yuri Tereshkin, the state prosecutor handling the case. ``How could this family bring itself to sell a five-year-old defenceless child? It is such a shocking case that it has been difficult to find a lawyer prepared to defend these people.'' Police were first tipped off about Tkachyova's plans last summer while investigating illegal adoptions. After hearing she was looking for a buyer, they decided to approach her, posing as middlemen with links to the ``organ mafia.'' ``We had no chance of following her every move to try catching her and a buyer,'' said Tereshkin. ``It could have taken months and she might have tried to sell Andrei in Moscow. We were scared of losing him. So we decided on a sting.'' In the weeks that followed, Tkachyova, a market trader, had several meetings with a man she knew only as Igor, unaware that he was an undercover policeman. She showed him photographs of her grandson. Tkachyova assured Igor that nobody would look for Andrei if he vanished. Igor at first offered $65,000. She refused and demanded twice that amount, in cash.