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| Galina Kovalenko |
A teacher was arrested after trying to sell her student to pay off her own debts.
The teacher is accused of conspiring to sell her 13-year-old student from a boarding school to potential human organ dealers.
52-year-old Galina Kovalenko of Ukraine, who is married to a former police officer, offered to sell the girl for $10,000. She is now facing between eight and 15 years in prison.
Kovalenko had worked at a boarding school for gifted children for 6 years, and she had a successful teaching career for 22 years.
Police said that the teacher handed over the child to officers who were posing as child traffickers.
Prosecutor in Kharkiv, said that Galina did not care at all about this child or whether the student will be forced into slavery or organ harvesting.
Police said that Kovalenko told the 13-year-old student named Olga, to get dressed because her older sister was coming to visit her.
However, after leaving school, the unsuspecting child was placed in a car, which the teacher believed to belong to the dealers who would pay her for teenager, according to the police report.
As soon as the teacher demanded the $10,000 from the undercover officer, she was arrested.
Detectives said that when the buyer expressed interest in the girl’s health, hinting that he wanted her for the organs, she agreed to hand over her medical records for about $40.
The teacher’s husband, Leonid, admitted that he and his wife are in financial trouble, and that the family urgently needed money.
However, he claims that his wife was set up by his former colleagues in the police department.
“Why did they need to make her a criminal when they could have prevented a crime,” Leonid said.
