Illegal activities proliferate on social media and undercover cyber police prowl the online world to catch crooks and stop crimes.

When sentinels of the Philippine National Police Anti-Cybercrime Group recently monitored a Facebook post selling a newborn for P40,000, they set up an entrapment operation to save the baby.

Police transacted with the unsuspecting seller, the infant’s own mother, arranging a meeting at a lying-in clinic where she delivered the baby in Barangay Malaria, Caloocan City on 24 September.

When they met and she took the marked money from the poseur buyer, the undercover cops placed the mother under arrest.

According to reports, the jobless suspect told police she sold her baby because she couldn’t take care of it as the father of the child had left her. She also needed money to buy medicine for her ailing father.

Meanwhile, a couple in Arkansas, USA were also arrested for trying to sell their baby.

Shalene Ehlers, 20, and Darien Urban, 21, have each been charged with endangering a minor and attempting to get compensation in exchange for a minor, the Washington Times (WT) reports.

Ehlers and Urban offered their child to their neighbor in exchange for a six-pack of beer in Hide Away Campground in Rogers City last 21 September, according to court papers cited by the WT. The drunken Ricky Crawford referred them to another camper, Cody Martin.

The couple asked for $1,000 from Martin for the baby and the latter wrote a sales contract that they all signed as he recorded the transaction. Martin then informed the campground owner who called police.

Based on court documents of the case, Martin said the mother told him she was selling the baby because it was “not working having three dogs and a baby.”