It started four years ago when a close buddy who uses the pseudonym Yang Guang tipped me off.

"Bro, I got a sensation," he wrote in an online message. "A family planning agency somewhere has been taking away babies and selling them to an orphanage."

I laughed at what I thought was my friend's sheer paranoia. How could that be true? A parent will fight to the death if someone tries to take away his or her child.