ATHENS, Greece — Greek police said Friday that they have arrested a childless couple in Athens on suspicion of buying an 8-month-old Roma girl and trying to register her as their own, amid international uproar over another little girl who was found living with unrelated Gypsies in Greece.
Bulgarian authorities are now trying to establish whether a local Roma woman is the mother of that child, a strikingly fair girl aged 5 or 6 known as Maria. The woman has been tested for a DNA match and served with preliminary charges of child selling, but has not been detained.
The couple arrested in Athens on Wednesday purportedly paid a Roma woman $5,500 for the baby, a Greek police statement said. Authorities are looking for the baby's birth parents and potential intermediaries in the alleged transaction.