Mexico won’t prosecute adoptive parents who paid for kids

MEXICO CITY — The chief prosecutor in the Mexican border state of Sonora has decided to drop charges against adoptive parents who paid a former official for babies taken from poor or drug-addicted mothers.

Prosecutor Carlos Navarro says the three children seized so far and placed at a shelter will be returned to the adoptive parents.

Eight parents had been arrested. The ringleaders of the scheme remain at large.

Authorities say a child welfare official in Sonora took at least nine babies from poor or drug-addicted mothers and offered them for adoption with false paperwork for between $5,000 and $9,000.

Navarro said Wednesday the kids will undergo DNA tests, in case any biological parents show up to claim them. He previously has said the biological mothers may not have wanted the babies.

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