The US has imposed financial sanctions and visa restrictions on two Ugandan judges and two lawyers over their part in an international adoption scam involving more than 30 children, reports The Guardian
Judges Moses Mukiibi and Wilson Musalu Musene, and lawyers Dorah Mirembe and Patrick Ecobu, facilitated a network organising adoptions of Ugandan children, according to the US State Department.
“Together, these individuals engaged in corruption to arrange the adoption of Ugandan children by unwitting parents in the United States,” the statement said.
According to The Guardian, the adoptions were processed through to European Adoption Consultants (EAC), a now defunct Ohio-based adoption agency. Along with Mirembe, two American employees of the company, Margaret Cole and Debra Parris, were charged on Friday with arranging adoptions through bribery and fraud in Uganda and Poland.According to the indictment, between 2013 and 2016 the EAC procured the adoption of more than 30 Ugandan children for US clients, in collaboration with Mirembe.
The adoption agency received more than $900,000 (£680,000) from these clients, and Mirembe more than $430,000, as well as tens of thousands of dollars directly from EAC’s clients for representing them in Uganda.
