What We Know About What Was Alleged in Crete in August
The Greek clinicians were accused of working with illegal brokers to bring in surrogate mothers and egg donors from Eastern European and Balkan nations.
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This News Digest Brought to You by
Future Fertility and LEVY Health
BY: RON SHINKMAN
The central European fertility sector was rocked in August when Greek police raided a long-established fertility clinic on the island of Crete as part of an investigation into the trafficking of surrogate mothers.
Eight employees of the Mediterranean Fertility Institute (MFI) were arrested in the raid, along with a local midwife who also participated in the alleged scheme. Those taken into custody include the clinic’s founder, Ioannis Giakoumakis, an OBGYN who opened the clinic in 1992. Giakoumakis did not respond to a request seeking comment sent to him through LinkedIn. His attorney, Michalis Mavros, has told Greek media that once more facts about the case emerge, Giakoumakis will be vindicated.
According to the Hellenic Police, the national law enforcement agency that is Greece’s equivalent of the FBI, the clinic had pursued the “industrialization of births,” primarily by working with traffickers who brought foreign-born women living in northern Greece – many refugees from Balkan and Eastern European countries – to act as surrogates and egg donors.
The Hellenic Police said it had been investigating MFI since December 2022. It concluded that at least 98 women were allegedly trafficked by the clinic as surrogates, while another 71 women were “exploited” as egg donors. Many of the surrogates were being housed in 14 residences allegedly procured and operated by MFI. At least 30 pregnant surrogates were found in the residences, which were described as squalid.
In addition to the trafficking charges, Greek authorities also allege that MFI and the eight staffers, “falsified birth records, falsified medical documents, prepared fictitious leases and fictitious cohabitation agreements.” It also alleges that embryos were illegally sold and that as many as 400 patients who underwent IVF procedures may have been defrauded.
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The Hellenic Police claim that MFI paid its own employees bounties ranging from about $3,100 to $5,200 for each surrogate or egg donor they brought in, while the surrogates were paid anywhere from $315 to $630 a month while pregnant. Would-be parents, meanwhile, were charged anywhere from $73,000 to $126,000 for each surrogate birth.
A Hellenic Police spokesperson said that the investigation had recently been handed over to prosecutors in Chania, the city in Crete where MFI is located. A spokesperson for the prosecutor’s office did not respond to a request seeking comment. It is unknown when trials will take place.
The arrests have created an upheaval among would-be parents using the clinic, including as many as 150 from Australia. That nation bans payment for surrogacy, although it is legal if done for free. Greece is one of the few nations that permits surrogacy contracts with foreigners, a law that has been on the books since 2014. Georgia, which also permits overseas commercial surrogacy, is moving to ban the practice by next year.
According to Australian media reports, Greek police have kept newborns linked to the surrogacy scandal in a hospital in Crete, barring contact with their would-be parents until DNA testing can confirm genetic links to MFI clients. And with the clinic shuttered immediately after the raid, many other would-be parents have their eggs and embryos caught in legal limbo.
Along with the chaos created by the scandal, it has also shaken the region’s fertility sector to the core. Nikolaos Vrachnis, a distinguished OBGYN in Athens, was fired by the Greek government as president of the Hellenic National Authority for Medically Assisted Reproduction shortly after the arrests were announced.
The content and themes expressed within the article are that of the news. The advertisers do not have editorial control over the content of this article, and Inside Reproductive Health maintains full editorial independence. The views and opinions expressed in this article do not represent the views of the advertisers or of Inside Reproductive Health.
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This News Digest Brought to You by
Future Fertility and LEVY Health
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