New Thai surrogacy scandal
Thai police are investigating a Japanese man at the centre of a Thai surrogacy case for possible trafficking offences.
Police are looking into the case after it emerged that the Japanese man had taken three babies out of the country in the past year, Police General Ek Ungsananont told reporters on Wednesday.
Investigators confirmed that nine infants found in a local condominium last week shared a common father after DNA testing, news website Kapook.com reported.
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Each child was under the care of individual nannies.
Both the condominium and the nannies were registered under the name of the Japanese man, who has since fled the country, police said.
Police removed the infants and placed them in the care of social services.
Thailand has re-examined its surrogacy laws following a scandal involving a surrogate baby left in Thailand by an Australian couple.
Authorities have been investigating surrogacy clinics and practices around the country but complain that the laws have too many loopholes that make cases hard to investigate.