Baby-for-sale ad on Kijiji has Alberta RCMP investigating to see if it’s hoax or real

Yet another baby-for-sale ad has turned up online, this time in Alberta.

The Globe and Mail reports RCMP in the oilsands hub of Fort McMurray are investigating the posting on Kijiji that went up last month.

“Hi, I’m 7 and a half months pregnant with twin boys,” says the ad, which the Globe says now has been taken down.

“I’m 20 years old and as hard as it is I can only care for one child. I would like to sell my other baby to a sweet caring family who will love him and care for him.

“I would like it to be private as well. Email if interested or would like to know more.”

Ads like this are almost always hoaxes but police are still compelled to investigate. In some cases the fake ads involve real babies.

[ Related: B.C. woman shocked to find her baby listed for sale online ]

Five years ago, police in Vancouver arrested a couple after they put an ad on Craigslist offering "A new baby girl, seven days old, healthy and very cute. Can't afford and unexpected. Looking for a good home."

Although the couple, in their 20s, claimed the ad was a hoax, their week-old baby was taken by a social worker and placed in government care while police recommended a mischief charge against the pair, the Vancouver Sun reported at the time.

The year before, police in Victoria investigated a similar ad, the Sun said. And last year, police in the B.C. capital probed another ad on a local buy-and-sell website that offered a baby "free to a good home," CTV News reported.

An ad on Kijiji in 2011 sent police in Sydney, N.S., to a home where parents were shocked to learn their baby had been listed for sale, the Cape Breton Post reported.

[ More Brew: Toronto’s Doug Ford considers move to provincial politics ]

And back in B.C., a Fort St. John woman was equally gobsmacked find someone had used a photo of her baby on a fake online ad.

There have been real instances of people selling babies on the web, such as a case in Belgium in 2008, and a 2006 case in Britain involving twins.

Which is why police have to devote investigative resources to following up every time one of these ads surface. Really, they're not that funny.