Nairobi — Six boys from Western Province have been found in Bomet District after police unearthed a massive child trade syndicate spanning four years.

Police officers posing as potential customers arrested a key supplier and four other suspects. The woman from Mironje Village of Emuhaya District was arrested in Kericho Town by district detectives from Bomet.

District CID officer Gilbert Makanya told journalists while in the company of acting district commissioner Jamleck Mbuba that he gave his officers Sh6,000. The woman had demanded the down-payment. The balance of Sh14,000, Mr Makanya said, was to be paid immediately the boy was delivered at the agreed venue.

The six boys are aged between seven months and five years. Those arrested, among them a couple, singled out the woman and a man from Chepkolon Village in Merigi Location of Bomet Central Division as the architects of the trade.

A team of officers rounded up the buyers at their homes yesterday at 4am following a tip by the main suspect. Police were yesterday looking for a man linking the seller to the buyers. The man from Cheboin Sub Location in Longisa Division is said to be holding three boys for sale, the eldest being in Standard Three at a primary school in Longisa. He is believed to have acquired the children for Sh60,000.

A couple that was arrested said in their 19 years of marriage they had not been blessed with a child and, so bought four boys for Sh80,000. They two needed a complete family, they said.

Asked why they never went for a girl, the man, a livestock trader, said "we just made do with that was available in the market". A 55-year-old suspect said his seven daughters were all married. He had to buy a boy to keep "my family fire burning". He bought the child at for 27,000.

An unmarried woman, 50, said she had been yearning for a baby in vain and decided to part with Sh20,000 for a boy.

Interviewed, the main suspect confessed she delivered all nine boys. The 42-year-old expectant mother of 12 said: "I've been supplying babies to Bomet for four years." She said she has been doing "business" with the knowledge of the provincial administration back home, who issue her with "official letters" to traffic children.