A mother in Belgium has been accused of selling her twin boys for roughly $13,000 in order to raise enough money to pay for cosmetic surgery. She was arrested after her husband informed the police.
Sonia Ringoir, 31, has been charged with "degrading treatment" of the infant twins, and, according to Nicola Smith of The Times, "She has also been charged with fraud after a Dutch couple alleged she had conned them by falsely offering to be a surrogate mother. If convicted, she could face between one month and five years in jail."
Ringoir's estranged husband, Marc Poppe, blew the case open when he admitted to an undercover Dutch reporter that he and his wife turned to selling the children as a means to make a quick buck toward Ringoir's planned liposuction surgery. “It was financially attractive to us," Poppe admits. "Of course we wouldn’t do it for nothing.” After the babies were allegedly sold, however, Ringoir opted for a gastric band instead of liposuction.
Ringoir, who has 5 children by two different fathers, was apparently under pressure from her husband to "have her body rebuilt," according to her new boyfriend, Mitch. Ringoir denies the charges and claims, according to Smith, that "she gave her babies away for free last March to a friend who could not have her own child because of a weak heart."
Though it is unclear what will happen to the children at this point, one suspects they might be better off with a weak-hearted mother than a cold-hearted one.
Mother 'Sold Her Twins To Pay For Liposuction'[Times Online]