Cops: Baby For Sale On Internet

(AP)  U.S. and Mexican police cooperated to arrest a Mexican couple who allegedly tried to sell a four-month-old baby over the Internet and hired a trafficker to take him to a supposed buyer in the United States, the U.S. Embassy announced on Thursday.

Mexican police arrested Ana Luisa Hidalgo Rivera and Alex Hernandez, both Mexican citizens, on Thursday on charges of attempting to sell the baby boy to an individual in Dallas, Texas, for $50,000.

Hidalgo Rivera claimed the child was hers. The statement said the sellers hired a migrant smuggler to take the infant across the border into the United States, but offered no further information on the purported buyer.

A tipster whose name was not released learned of the transaction through an Internet chat room and advised the U.S. Spanish-language television network Univision.

"Undercover Univision reporters located Hidalgo-Rivera in Monterrey, Mexico, and videotaped her and Alex Hernandez offering to sell the baby," U.S. Ambassador Tony Garza said in a press statement.

"While law enforcement agencies on both sides of the border deserve recognition for preventing an infant from being sold and smuggled, Univision reporters should also be credited for preventing a serious crime from taking place," the statement continued.

It said the arrests "demonstrate the importance of cross-border cooperation, and provide one more example of why democratic government depends on the press to investigate and report."

Mexican and U.S. police have investigated alleged adoption-for-cash and baby-selling rings in the past, some targeting young single mothers who were offered cash or help with the medical costs of delivery in exchange for giving up their children.