SHANGHAI - A jobless young couple sold their 6-day-old son for 2,500 yuan (USD366.17, euro248.42) and had spent nearly half of the money for items including a mobile phone before police caught them in southwest China's Chongqing Municipality. The new mother took to playing mahjong four days after delivery and had never taken nourishment to nurture her weak body.



The baby is being cared at the Wanzhou Welfare Institute, today's Chongqing Times reported.
 The Longsha Town Police Station in Chongqing's Wanzhou District heard about the baby sale on December 3, police told the newspaper.



Officers arrived at a residential building and found a middle-aged man bargaining with two others while holding a baby in his arms.

The baby, wrapped in a thin blanket, was crying.



The man claimed to be the baby's uncle and was finding adoptive parents for the toddler whose birth parents were working in south China's Guangdong Province.

 The man, surnamed Li, 43, a Shalong native, later allegedly told to the police that he had bought the baby a night before from a young couple at a small inn in Wanzhou.

The couple, a 21-year-old man surnamed Xin and a 19-year-old woman surnamed Zhang, gave away the baby because they were unable to support it.

 Li is said to have told the couple he had relatives who wanted to adopt a child. He managed to take the baby away by paying 2,500 yuan, a sum the baby's father suggested would cover medical bills for the delivery.



Li then took the baby to his hometown and tried to sell the boy on the street for 10,000 yuan.
 Angered passers-by called police.

The baby was sent to hospital where he was pronounced healthy.



On December 4, police caught the young couple.

They said they had spent about 1,000 yuan of the 2,500 yuan they got for the baby, including buying a mobile phone for 650 yuan.

"I have no job and cannot support myself, let alone the baby," the man told the police. He said he didn't want the baby back.



The couple lived in the Wanzhou inn at a cost of 2 yuan per day, he said.

The mother later said she would take back the baby and take care of it. But the couple had not taken good care of the baby, nor of themselves, the newspaper quoted police as saying.



(ShanghaiDaily.Com)