The Paris Prosecutor’s Office arrested this Wednesday on human trafficking charges a 27-year-old mother who had allegedly sold her daughter to a 70-year-old man in exchange for 90,000 euros, while looking for the father, who fled with the minor

As reported on Wednesday by the French newspaper Le Parisien, the plot was discovered on February 19, when employees of a cinema in the French capital saw the man caressing the breasts of the 12-year-old girl in front of her parents.

The suspect, originally from Tulon (south of France), was a family friend and offered them around 90,000 euros in exchange for the minor in payments he made regularly, according to investigations by the brigade for the protection of minors (BPM). ) from the Paris prosecutor’s office, revealed by Le Parisien.

The man admitted to having kissed and caressed the minor, although he assured that they were “marks of affection” and that the money had been sent “out of generosity.” Both the mother and the septuagenarian were arrested once the police arrived, but the father managed to flee with the minor and is still on the run.

The prosecutor’s office, which has already opened a judicial investigation, assures that the man was charged on February 22 for sexual assault and human trafficking against a minor and is in pretrial detention. For her part, the mother, a Romanian national, is imprisoned on charges of human trafficking against a minor.

The BPM investigators rule out that there is a pedophilia network behind the case, but find it “very strange” that the parents agreed to sell the girl and explain that there are still “dark areas” to be resolved.