St. Petersburg Agency for Reproductive Technologies

History

2025: Accused doctors of selling 13 newborns for a reward of ₽53 million

Eight medical workers of a private clinic in the Primorsky Territory were accused of trafficking in children with their illegal export abroad for a total reward of over ₽53 million. This was announced at the end of May 2025 by the regional prosecutor's office.

According to "Газета.ru," according to the investigation, the clinic staff provided surrogacy services for foreign citizens and found suitable candidates for this. In the period from 2018 to 2020, they illegally issued documents on the alleged infertility of buyers and genetic parents.

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Фото: Freepik

Health workers under the guise of treatment cultivated embryos and planted them with surrogate mothers for the subsequent sale and movement of born children abroad. As a result of criminal activities, doctors made the purchase and sale of 13 newborns, knowingly in a helpless state.

A REN TV source explained that the babies were registered by those born in Russia with a mark on the paternity of a foreign citizen and sent to another state. Before the transfer to customers, the children lived with nannies in apartments or in a hotel.

According to the kp.ru, the six defendants in the case are well-known doctors from St. Petersburg. Among them, the general director of the network of reproductive centers, specified the Telegram channel "78|NEWS." Two more defendants worked in Nizhny Novgorod.

The channel RT found out that it was in St. Petersburg that they began to implement the scheme. The head of St. Petersburg Agency for Reproductive Technologies LLC concluded an agreement with a citizen, China according to which the Chinese were examined at Surrogacy LLC, and then Vasileostrovskaya Reproduction Clinic LLC carried out fertilization of surrogate mothers.

The fathers in this scheme were men from China, and women who were found by members of a criminal group became genetic mothers. Subsequently, the scheme moved to Vladivostok for unknown reasons, RT notes.

Kp.ru suggests that the coronavirus pandemic has caused the business to move. During quarantine restrictions, it was difficult for customers from the PRC to get to St. Petersburg, so the operations were transferred to the border region.^[1]

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