TOKYO (TR) – Two male former NGO workers arranged a child’s adoption for profit and spent most of the proceeds on gambling without paying the birth mother, police said on Thursday.
Kiyoshi Uetani, 35, and Yutaka Iseda, 32, former staff at now-defunct Society to Save the Future of Babies, were referred to prosecutors for allegedly arranging a child’s adoption for a couple in the capital for commercial purposes, reports Nippon News Network (Mar. 9).
Uetani, who has been charged with violating the Child Welfare Law, has admitted to the charges, police said. Iseda is denying the charges, quoted as saying he “collected money to cover actual expenses for arranging the adoption.”
The suspects allegedly made an agreement with the couple for a fee of 2.25 million yen in cash to arrange the adoption of the child of a woman in her 20s, TV Asahi reported (Mar. 9). Of that figure, actual expenses for the likes of transportation amounted to several tens of thousands of yen.
The suspects failed to cover the woman’s birth-related fees, and spent the rest of the money on entertainment, including pachinko.
Police are investigating Uetani and his associate for additional crimes after finding that the pair was promoting so-called special adoptions online, where the relationship with the child’s biological parents is dissolved and the adoptee exclusively becomes the child of the adoptive parents for legal purposes.
