Chioma insists on saying Hope, the little boy she is holding by the hand, and her son. After eight years of failed attempts to conceive, she sees me as her miracle baby.

“I own my baby,” she said.

She sat next to her husband, Ike, at the office of a Nigerian state official and spent nearly an hour interviewing the couple.

As Anambra State Commissioner for Women Affairs and Social Welfare, Ify Obinabo has vast experience in resolving family disputes, but this will not be an ordinary disagreement.

Five members of the Ike family, who are also present in the room, do not believe that Hope is the couple’s biological child.

Chioma claims she “carries” the child for about 15 months. Commissioner Di and the Ike family don’t believe him.

Chioma says she faces pressure from the Ike family to become beautiful. They even ask me to marry another woman.

In desperation, she goes to a “clinic” where she offers different “treatments” – a single scam that takes advantage of women desperate to become mothers and involves baby trafficking.

We are not changing the name of Chioma, Ike and others for this article to protect them from attacks by dia communities.

Nigeria has one of the highest birth rates in the world, with women often facing social pressure to become beautiful and even abuse if they are not in shape.

Under pressure, some women do everything in their power to realize their dream of motherhood.

For over a year, BBC Africa Eye has not investigated the “cryptic pregnancy” scam.

Scammers pose as doctors or nurses to convince women they are receiving a “miracle fertility treatment” that will make them pregnant. The first “treatment” usually costs hundreds of dollars and involves an injection, drink, or substance that is put into the vagina.

None of the women or officials we spoke to during our investigation know for sure what is in these drugs. But some women don’t tell us that because of bodily changes – like a swollen belly – we go further to convince them they are pregnant.

Women who give the ‘treatment’ are warned not to visit a normal doctor or hospital, as no scan or pregnancy test is going to see ‘the baby’, the scammers claim it is growing outside the uterus .

When the time comes to “deliver” the baby, they tell the women that labor will only begin once they induce them with a certain “expensive drug”, they will need additional payment.

Tori explains how the “delivery” happens differently, but it’s all disturbing. They give some women drugs to put them to sleep only for them to wake up with a mark that looks like a C-section mark. Odas say that they give the injection to make them sleepy, that they see boxes where they will come to believe that they are giving birth.

Either way, women are left with babies that they are expected to give birth to.

Chioma told the commissioner. Si Fy said that when her time to “give birth” came, the so-called doctor would give her an injection for her height and tell her to push. She doesn’t know how she ended up with Hope, but she says childbirth is “painful.”

Our team manages to get into one of the secret “clinics” – they connect with a woman known as “Dr. Ruth” to her clients – by posing as a couple they are not trying to conceive for eight years.

The so-called “Dr Ruth” runs his clinic every second Saturday of the month from a dilapidated hotel in Ihiala town, Anambra State. Outside his room, many women are waiting for him in the corridors of the hotel, some with tall women.

The whole atmosphere is charged with positivity. At one point, a large party broke out in the room after they told a woman she was pregnant.

When our undercover reporters turn to her, “Dr. Ruth” tells them the treatment is guaranteed.

She offers the woman an injection, saying it will allow the couple to “select” the sex of the future baby – which is medically impossible.

After they reject the injection, “Dr. Ruth” gives them a bag of crushed pills along with other medications to take at home, along with instructions on when to have sex.

The initial treatment cost 350,000 naira (a little over $200).

Our undercover reporter doesn’t take drugs, doesn’t follow any of “Dr. Ruth’s” instructions, and returns to see her four weeks later.

After using a device that looks like an ultrasound machine on our reporter’s stomach, something like a heartbeat begins to sound and “Dr. Ruth” compliments her by saying she doesn’t look good.

After announcing the good news, “Dr. Ruth” explains how they have to pay for a “rare” and expensive medicine they needed for the baby’s birth, which costs between 1.5 and two million naira ($1,000). ).

Without this drug, pregnancy can last beyond nine months, says “Dr Ruth”, who ignores the scientific facts, adding: “The baby will be malnourished – we will have to rebuild him. »

“Dr Ruth” never responds to the allegations the BBC asks him to respond to.

The extent to which the women involved actually believe these claims is unclear.

But the clues as to why they fall for this clear lie fit, in part, online groups where pregnancy misinformation is abundant.

A mystery pregnancy is recognized as a medical situation, and a woman does not know she is pregnant until a late stage.

But during our investigation, the BBC discovered false information on Facebook groups and pages about this type of pregnancy.

A woman from the United States, who devotes her entire page to her “enigmatic pregnancy”, claims that she has been pregnant “for years” and that her journey cannot be explained by science.

In closed Facebook groups, many messages use religious terms to hail this false “treatment” as a “miracle” for those we could never conceive.

All of this misinformation helps solidify women’s belief in this scam.

Members of dia groups come not only from Nigeria, but also from South Africa, the Caribbean and even the United States.

Scammers also use them to sell their market.

Once someone says they are ready to start a scam process, they invite them to more secure WhatsApp groups. Today, administrators are sharing information about “cryptic clinics” and the processes involved.

Authorities tell us that to complete the “treatment,” the scammers need newborn babies and to do so, they seek out desperate and vulnerable women, many of whom are young and pregnant, in a country where abortion is illegal.

In February 2024, the Anambra State Ministry of Health raided the facility where Chioma “delivers” hope.

The BBC obtained footage of the raid, which shows a large complex made up of two buildings.

Inside one room there are medical equipment – for clients – while for di oda dem bin, several pregnant women are kept inside against their will. Some are barely 17 years old.

Some tell us they trick them into going on dia, they say they don’t know, they say they sell babies to fraudulent customers.

Odas, like Uju, is not her real name, she is too scared to tell her family that she is pregnant and is finding a way out. She says they are offering her 800,000 naira (about $500) for the baby.

When asked if she regrets her decision to sell her baby, she replies: “I’m still confused. »

Commissioner Obinabo, we are joining his state’s efforts to crack down on this scam, saying scammers are taking advantage of vulnerable women like Uju to procure babies.

At the end of the interrogation, Commissioner Obinabo threatens to take baby Hope away from Chioma.

But Chioma begs for her cause, she insists that she is a victim herself and says she doesn’t realize what they are doing.

The commissioner ultimately accepted his explanation.

For now, Chioma and Ike can keep their baby – unless the biological parents come forward to claim him.

But unless attitudes towards women, infertility, reproductive rights and adoption change, scams like these will continue to multiply, experts warn.