M'sia police foil baby-smuggling

M'sia police foil baby-smuggling

Agencies, Kuala Lumpur

Police have thwarted an attempt to smuggle two babies into Malaysia from neighboring Indonesia in a styrofoam box, a report said on Sunday.

The New Sunday Times newspaper said police rescued the two infants -- a two-month-old boy and a two-week-old girl -- and detained a local man at a pier in the southern Johor state.

The babies were hidden in a styrofoam box of the type used to keep fish and could have been brought in from Indonesia's Batam island by boat, it said.

The babies were sound asleep when they were discovered as they had been fed milk laced with sleeping pills.

An envelope containing birth certificates, believed to have been issued by a clinic in Indonesia, was also seized.

Acting on a tip-off, police waited at the Pangerang district's fishing port late on Friday and detained a Malaysian man who claimed he had been paid 200 ringgit (US$50) by a smuggling syndicate to receive the babies and sell them to a third party, local police spokesman Sutiman Rohani said.

District police chief Tajudin Mohamad Isa said the babies had been placed under the care of Kota Tinggi Hospital.

Both babies were healthy and had been placed under the care of the state welfare department, a hospital spokeswoman said on condition of anonymity.

It was the first known incident of baby smuggling in that district, but police there were beefing up vigilance against the practice, Sutiman said.

The smuggling of drugs, babies, prostitutes and domestic workers from Indonesia has long been a problem in Malaysia because of porous land and sea borders between the countries.