Two women arrested at Mumbai airport for illegal egg donation racket

Mumbai, Jan 17 (PTI) Sahar police has arrested two women at the Mumbai international airport after immigration officials uncovered an alleged illegal egg donation and surrogacy racket operating from Thane.

Sunoti Belel (44), one of the accused, allegedly provided unmarried women as egg suppliers to fertility centres in India and abroad. Such women were shown as married with the help of forged documents, as an unmarried woman can not donate her eggs under Indian law.

Belel, a Kalyan resident, was detained after arriving from Bangkok around 1.30 pm on Friday. About 30 minutes later, another woman passenger, Seema Vinzarat (29), a Thane resident, arrived from Bangkok and was also detained for questioning.

Immigration officer Vaibhav Bhosale stated in his complaint that he became suspicious when Belel failed to give satisfactory answers about her travel purpose to Bangkok.

During interrogation, officials learnt that Vinzarat had accompanied Belel to Bangkok as a donor for egg donation tests and was allegedly paid a substantial amount for the trip.

Belel told police that she, along with absconding accused Sangita Bagul, ran an agency named Elite Care in Thane which supplied egg donors and surrogate mothers to fertility centres in India and abroad.

She allegedly admitted to supplying unmarried women as egg donors by creating forged documents.

Under the Surrogacy (Regulation) Act, 2021, a woman must be married and have at least one child of her own to donate eggs.

The Act also bans commercial surrogacy.

Vinzarat told police that she came into contact with Bagul in 2022 and, through her, sold her eggs at a hospital in Andheri. She claimed to have travelled to fertility clinics in Kenya (2024), Kazakhstan (February 2025), and Thailand (January 2026) to sell her eggs with the help of Belel and Bagul, although some attempts failed due to medical reasons.

Vinzarat allegedly sold her eggs by falsely declaring her marital status as married.

"We are ascertaining the total number of women involved in this racket," a police official said. PTI ZA KRK