A 22-year-old Malad woman got trapped in a surrogacy racket after she got into a relationship with a colleague at a Navi Mumbai lab. The man sent her to Hyderabad to rent her womb saying it would fetch them Rs 4.5 lakh. Her world turned upside down after doctors declared her unfit and she was unable to return the token money. She was eventually rescued by the Malad police and brought to the city.

The Malad police uncovered the racket after the young woman’s mother approached them in September saying her daughter had gone missing. A team comprising inspector D Ligade and sub-inspector Janardhan Shinde tracked her down to Hyderabad. Sources in the police department said the woman was in desperate need of a job during the pandemic and had asked an Instagram friend to find her a job.