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A woman accused of leading a baby trafficking ring in Indonesia has been sentenced to seven years in prison for trafficking infants to Singapore and within the country.
Lie Siu Luan was convicted by a court in Bandung, West Java, for committing crimes “for the purpose of exploitation”, presiding judge Gatot Ardian Agustriono said on Tuesday.
The 70-year-old woman was identified as the leader of a 19-member group accused of trafficking babies in Indonesia and Singapore.
The sentence was below the 10-year jail term requested by prosecutors.
She had earlier told the Bandung district court that she had sent at least 12 babies to Singapore.
According to the indictment, Lie trafficked a baby to Singapore for adoption in 2022 and received about S$17,000 from the deal.
Her lawyer, Sendi Sanjaya, said Lie would not appeal the ruling.
“She accepted the decision,” Sendi told reporters.
Another defendant, Astri Fitrinika, was also found guilty and sentenced to six years and seven months in prison.
The remaining accused received jail terms ranging from three to six years.
The court also ordered that eight rescued babies be placed under the care of a local orphanage.
The suspects were arrested last year after a parent reported a baby kidnapping case in West Java.
Investigators later traced the operation to a suspect who admitted to trading more than two dozen infants, including babies as young as three months old.
Authorities said some babies were obtained from parents who could not afford to care for them or did not want to keep them.
Others were sold locally after being rejected by potential adoptive parents in Singapore.
Human trafficking remains a major issue in Indonesia, a country made up of more than 17,000 islands.
In one of the country’s worst recent cases, at least 57 people were found held captive on a palm oil plantation in North Sumatra in 2022.
