IBADAN — A major interstate child-stealing and human trafficking syndicate operating across southwestern and south-southern Nigeria has been uncovered following shocking confessions by a principal suspect, Adejoke Popoola, who admitted to selling her own biological infants and abducting at least 19 other children for onward sale to buyers, clinics, and suspected ritualists.
Speaking during a press parade at the Oyo State Police Command Headquarters in Eleyele, Ibadan, on Monday, September 7, 2026, the 53-year-old suspect—popularly known as Orente Alagbo—detailed how she sold a newborn boy and a set of biological twins to a clinic in Ogeere, Ogun State, for ₦300,000 after the fathers rejected the pregnancies. She further confessed to receiving between ₦80,000 and ₦120,000 per child for abductions executed since October 2024.
Briefing newsmen on the breakthrough, Oyo State Commissioner of Police, Abimbola Olugbenga, revealed that ongoing operations across Oyo, Ogun, and Delta states have so far yielded the rescue of 17 stolen children and the arrest of seven key syndicate members. However, police investigations confirmed the tragic death of six abducted children whose remains were allegedly sold to suspected herbalists and religious clerics for ritual purposes.
