Woman sentenced to death for infant trafficking

KUNMING - A court in Southwest China's Yunnan province sentenced a woman to death for infant trafficking on Friday.

Jiang Kaizhi, 51, the prime culprit of an infant trafficking ring, organized a group of people to abduct babies in Yunnan and sell them in Central Henan province from late 2009 to August 2010, according to the verdict issued by the intermediate people's court in the city of Qujing.

Thirty-five other members of the group, aged between 20 and 65, on Friday received penalties ranging from life imprisonment to a three-year jail term for abducting, transporting and trafficking infants.

Jiang could get about 30,000 yuan ($4,711) for selling a baby boy while the profit for trafficking a baby girl was more than 20,000 yuan, said the verdict.

A total of 223 infants were sold by the infant trafficking ring. Jiang was seized by the police in January of 2011 during a crackdown on the ring.