A 70-year-old woman accused of running a sprawling baby trafficking operation across Indonesia and Singapore has been sentenced to seven years in prison after prosecutors said infants were bought, moved across borders and sold for adoption.
Lie Siu Luan was found guilty of coordinating the recruitment and sale of babies, according to reports from the BBC, The Jakarta Post and The Straits Times.
Authorities said Luan oversaw a network of 18 other people who worked as brokers, recruiters, caretakers and document handlers. Some allegedly posed as the babies’ biological mothers while dealing with prospective adoptive parents.
All 18 co-defendants were also convicted and received prison sentences ranging from three to six years.
The case began drawing widespread attention in July 2025, when Indonesian police announced the arrests of 13 people in West Java who were allegedly tied to an international baby trafficking ring operating in Singapore.
Investigators said they uncovered evidence that 25 infants, most around a year old, had been sold for approximately 16 million Indonesian rupiah each, or about $900.
The investigation reportedly began after a West Java man named Dani Hidayat contacted authorities. Hidayat said a member of the group approached him and offered to buy his baby after he joined a Facebook group while searching for children to adopt.
A total of 19 defendants, including 18 women and one man, went on trial in April at the Bandung District Court in West Java.
Prosecutors said members of the group had different roles in the alleged scheme. Some found babies, others cared for them before they were transferred, and several allegedly created fraudulent documents containing the children’s names.
During the trial, Luan admitted that she sent at least 12 babies to Singapore for adoption in 2022, according to the BBC and The Jakarta Post.
Each child was reportedly sold for approximately $13,000.
“We declare that the defendant Lie Siu Luan has been legally proven guilty of committing the criminal act of recruiting, harboring, sending, transferring or receiving a person… for the purpose of exploiting [the babies],” Judge Gatot Ardian Agustriono said in court, according to The Straits Times.
Luan claimed she did not realize that sending babies overseas and accepting money for their adoption was illegal.
She reportedly blamed a business partner in Singapore for convincing her that the operation was legitimate.
Lie’s seven-year prison sentence was reportedly lower than prosecutors had sought. However, she decided not to appeal the ruling.
“Our client accepts the judges’ ruling,” her attorney, Seni Sanjaya, said.
The remaining defendants received sentences of between three and six years for their alleged roles in the operation.
Authorities have not disclosed what happened to all the children believed to have been moved through the trafficking network or whether additional suspects remain under investigation.
The West Java Police and Bandung District Court did not immediately respond to requests for further comment.
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