Zugravescu recognizes that reforms can affect only those abuses related to institutional adoptions. And even in institutions doctors alter documents to indicate that a given child has been returned to the biological home when in fact the child has been placed for adoption. Zugravescu hopes to appeal to the adoptive parents. "I am offering an honest, legal avenue for the adoptive parents to follow," she says. "It will be up to them to choose if they want to follow a way that they know is incorrect."

A spokesman for the Government, Bogdan Baltazar, is not optimistic. "It's big business, and it's very dirty, because it plays on holy emotions, and it's used by these sharks who prey on these emotions. It's a hell of a job to try to bring some order to it."

Most Government officials, who earned their stripes under the Ceausescu regime, blame the Communist dictatorship for warping compassion into greed. But the avid exchange of baksheesh has long been a cornerstone of professional customs in Romania. Surgeons routinely expected a "tip" of 5,000 to 10,000 lei in advance of any procedure. Ward nurses expected gifts of soap and coffee from families simply to guarantee that their relatives would receive their daily food and medicines.

Notwithstanding the labyrinth of influence-peddling and outright bribery involved, a Romanian adoption decree, issued in a local court, is generally recognized as a legal adoption in the United States.

RANDY AND SHANNON Prater's gypsy family agreed to put Florin up for adoption, and soon he was staying with them in their temporary apartment in Bucharest. The process was stormier for their friends Leslie and Peggy Koralek, who finally found a little girl named Ionela in an orphanage. The 24-year-old mother immediately signed the consent form for the couple to adopt her child, but later refused to give her up. A riot almost broke out as the whole village ganged up on her for reneging. The mother claimed that Dan Anghel, the interpreter, had been a "liar and a thief" and had not translated correctly. Later, after the local police intervened, the mother patched up relations with Peggy and Leslie, and the agreement went through.

Vania and her tiny infant, who'd been offered to Paula, the nurse from Oregon, resurfaced a week later as players in a bizarre con game. One evening as we and two couples from Canada happened to be looking over snapshots of the children they'd seen, it became clear that Vania and her baby had shown up in a variety of places. One of the couples had been invited by M. to see a particular child, and instead were taken to an apartment to meet Vania and her newborn. The couple was uncomfortable with what seemed to be the coercion of Vania. When they expressed their disgust, M. threatened them. Then Mihai appeared, introduced as M.'s driver. When the Canadians saw that Mihai "packed a piece" under his left arm, as they told it, they got out of there as soon as they could.

The following week, two other Canadians found themselves in the home of Mihai and his eye-shadowed partner -- now identified as his wife, Aurelia Marinescu. They had been taken there by the director of an orphanage, who identified Aurelia as an employee. Mihai and Aurelia took the adoptive family to the same mother, Vania. To their horror, they found her "hysterically screaming 'I am not a whore.' " As they turned to leave, they recalled, "Vania's husband, a little guy with a thin mustache, came running after us, offering their other baby, Valentin, for adoption."