Maybe the media will make the mother of all adoption scams much bigger news

When people hear the phrase "adoption scam", most people will assume it will be a story about a number of prospective adoptive parents getting swindled out of money, either by a birth parent or adoption agency claiming to have a child to adopt.  The scam part being, there is no child; there's only a bunch of people trying to take money from those who believe they are doing the right thing.  If people think the average adoption scam can easily leave a parent financially and emotionally drained, behold the mother of all adoption scams created to serve adoptive parents willing to pay anything for a real live baby.

The scam is known as The Dead Baby Scam, and it worked like this:  mothers and fathers were told their baby was either born dead, or died immediately after birth.  That was lie #1, because that baby never died.  Instead, while the parents were left to mourn the loss of their healthy newborn, others got busy cleaning and preparing the healthy newborn for the new parents who paid others a significant amount of money for their brand new warm happy bundle of joy.  Yep, those "dead" babies were sold through a private black-market adoption.  After that first lie, the lies would only snowball, as bribes taken and paid by various "respectable" people made this black market baby adoption scam work so well. Think about the serious implications, as a falsified death certificate and fake birth certificate had to be created so this illegal adoption could be possible.  (OBC and adoption records, anyone?)

Now there's relavitely good news to report.   Nicole Brewster, a producer from Fifth Estate, is looking for victims of this, the most hideous of all, adoption scams.

If you are, or believe to be, a victim of The Dead Baby Scam, or have information about this terrible practice, please contact Nicole at:

Nicole Brewster-MercuryAssociate
Producer CBC Television-fifth estate
(416) 205-6637
nicole_brewster@cbc.ca