Arizona Official Indicted in Adoption Fraud Prosecutors Call ‘Purest Form of Human Trafficking’

Arizona Official Indicted in Adoption Fraud Prosecutors Call ‘Purest Form of Human Trafficking’
(L) Undated photo of Paul Petersen, provided by Maricopa County Assessor's Office. (R) Undated booking photo provided by the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office. MCAO/MCSO via AP
Tom Ozimek
Tom Ozimek
Reporter
|Updated:

Prosecutors accuse an Arizona elected official of smuggling over 40 pregnant women into the United States from the Marshall Islands in order to buy their babies and sell them to adoptive families for profit.

Paul Petersen, a Republican assessor whose private-sector job was as an adoption attorney, was charged in Utah, Arizona, and Arkansas with counts including fraud, forgery, conspiracy to commit money laundering, human smuggling, and sale of a child.

Tom Ozimek
Tom Ozimek
Reporter
Tom Ozimek is a senior reporter for The Epoch Times. He has a broad background in journalism, deposit insurance, marketing and communications, and adult education.
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