Thai police yesterday broke up a ring offering illegal surrogacy service and rescued fourteen Vietnamese women.
The women, aged 19 to 26 years old, were confined to three houses on the outskirts of Bangkok, said a VNA reporter who witnessed the rescue, conducted by Thail police and NGOs.
In one house, police found 15 foreign passports, including nine Vietnamese, and arrested four alleged conspirators, said to be Taiwanese.
Four Vietnamese women, two of whom are pregnant, told the VNA reporter they had come to Thailand for 3-4 months from the southern provinces of Bac Lieu and Ca Mau.
They said they were first promised to get a job "suitable for their health" and only figured out the real situation after several months being kept in the houses without a job.
Other women said they knew they were being procured as surrogate mothers. They were given food, accommodation and paid about US$5000 for each child they had.
It is alledged that the women were being injected with embryos or sperm from famous people and the resultant babies would be sold to foreigners.
The rescued women were later brought to Thailand\'s Immigration Bureau to finalese paperwork before being sent back to Vietnam.