China has smashed four child-trafficking rings and arrested more than a thousand people for using websites and instant messaging groups to trade babies , Chinese authorities said Friday . On February 19 , police from 27 provinces across China rescued 382 babies and arrested 1,094 people suspected of buying and selling infants online , China 's Ministry of Public Security said in a statement on its website . The sting was part of a six-month operation launched after police in Beijing and Jiangsu in eastern China received reports of a website promoting private adoptions . Potential buyers . Further investigations uncovered a virtual black market -- involving four websites , online forums and some 30 groups on a popular Chinese messaging platform -- that connected traffickers with potential buyers . The ministry said some of the people arrested confessed to using the sites . According to local media reports , 27 suspects were arrested in the country 's southern Sichuan province , where 13 babies were also rescued . Another 43 suspects were arrested and 11 babies rescued in Anhui province , in eastern China . A woman arrested by police in Leshan , Sichuan admitted to buying two baby girls from Wuhan and Chengdu , in August 2013 and January 2014 , respectively , Chinese state broadcaster CCTV reported . Another couple in their 30s told CCTV they used a Chinese website to buy a baby from an expectant teenage couple in Chengdu . They paid 20,000 yuan ( US $ 3,250 ) for the child . It is not known where the other arrests took place . Major concern . Child trafficking has become a major concern in China , as traffickers seek to profit off a growing demand for healthy babies from potential adoptive parents both in China and beyond . Last month , a Chinese doctor received a suspended death sentence for selling babies to a trafficking ring . The woman , an obstetrician at a hospital in Shaanxi province in central China , sold seven babies in six separate cases after persuading her patients that their newborns were sick and should be given up , according to statements posted on the local court 's official microblog account . The ministry said its investigation into the online baby-trading networks is still ongoing . It did not say whether charges have been brought against any of the suspects , or if the trafficking extended beyond China .
China busts crime networks using the internet to sell babies , authorities say . Score: 6 Local media say some arrests took place in Sichuan and Anhui provinces .