FBI swoops on internet twin broker

The twins are currently in the care of British social services

Federal agents in the United States have raided the California home of the woman at the centre of the internet adoption scandal and taken three small children away from her.

FBI officers seized computers and documents from 34-year-old Tina Johnson's home, as well as the children - two infants said to be between six and nine months old, and a three-year-old.

Ms Johnson - who runs an internet adoption agency based in San Diego - has been accused of selling twin girls to an American couple and then reselling them to another couple, the Kilshaws, from North Wales.

The Kilshaws have vowed to fight for the twins

The twins were taken to the UK and are now in the care of Flintshire social services, pending a judge's verdict on what should happen to them.

Legal battle

It is not known if the children seized during Wednesday's raid had been placed with Ms Johnson for adoption.

Sources say that Tina Johnson herself has not been arrested.

Last week, the American couple in the twins saga, Richard and Vicky Allen, told the BBC that they were shelving their battle for the twins after Mr Allen was accused of sexually abusing their teenage babysitter.

The Kilshaws are currently appealing an Arkansas judge's ruling that they have no legal right to the girls.

But Mr Allen is not the only one who has had brushes with law recently.

Parents separated

Last week British police questioned Mrs Kilshaw on suspicion of theft of travellers' cheques. She was released without charges.

The twins' natural mother, Tranda Wecker, is being investigated for fraud, accused of continuing to claim child welfare payments after handing over the twins.

She has already admitted using the address of her aunt when the Kilshaws adopted the girls in Arkansas to bypass a state law that says the birth mother or the adoptive parents must live in the state for at least 30 days before the adoption.

The two girls, named Kiara and Keyara by their natural parents, were born in St Louis in June. Their parents separated soon after.