A STUDENT spectacularly stumbled across her long-lost identical twin she was completely unaware of on TikTok.
Elene Deisadze, 19, from Georgia was scrolling through her TikTok feed in 2022 when she came across another profile that looked just like her.
The other girl - named Anna Panchulidze and also 19, looked remarkably similar to her.
The two hit it off and befriended each other months later.
Anna, also a student, studies English at university whereas sister Elene is a psychology undergraduate.
Anna said: "We became friends without suspecting we might be sisters, but both of us felt there was some special bond between us."
They learnt that they were separately adopted after the bombshell revelation - and a part of a much more sinister operation.
Last summer, both of their parents independently told the girls they had been adopted -- revelations they had long planned to make.
Anna added: "I had a happy childhood, but now my entire past felt like a deception."
After speaking more and more they decided to take a DNA test last year - confirming what they both suspected - they were identical twins.
"I struggled to process the information, to accept the new reality -- the people who had raised me for 18 years are not my parent."
Far from an innocent separation at birth, the sisters are among tens of thousands of Georgian children who were illegally sold in a decades-long baby trafficking scandal.
The scheme, uncovered by journalists and families searching for lost relatives, saw babies stolen from their mothers - many of whom were told they had died.
They were then sold to adoptive parents in Georgia and abroad.
Local journalists found that the illegal adoptions took place over more than 50 years, shockingly orchestrated by healthcare workers.
This included a network of maternity hospitals, nurseries and adoption agencies that colluded to take the children from their parents.
The evil staff falsified birth records, and placed them with new families in exchange for cash.
Anna no longer feels resentment. She said: "I feel no anger whatsoever, only immense gratitude to the people who raised me, and joy at finding my flesh and blood."
The test for Elene and Anna was arranged with the help of Georgian journalist Tamuna Museridze, who runs a Facebook group dedicated to reuniting babies stolen from their parents.
It has over 200,000 members -- including mothers who were told by hospital staff that their babies had died shortly after being born, but then discovered years later they might be alive.
Museridze set up the group in 2021 in a bid to find her own family after learning she had been adopted.
She soon uncovered the mass baby-selling operation.
"Mothers were told their babies had died shortly after birth and were buried at a hospital cemetery," Museridze said.
"In fact, hospitals had no cemeteries, and babies were being secretly whisked away and sold to adoptive parents."
The new parents were often unaware the adoptions were illegal and told fabricated stories about the circumstances.
"Some people, however, consciously chose to circumvent the law and buy a baby" to avoid decade-long waiting lists, Museridze explained.
She says she has evidence that at least 120,000 babies "were stolen from their parents and sold" between 1950 and 2006, when anti-trafficking measures by reformist president Mikheil Saakashvili eventually quashed the scheme.
In Georgia, new parents would pay the equivalent of many months' salary to arrange the adoption, while babies trafficked abroad were sold for up to $30,000, the journalsit added.
Elene's adoptive mother, Lia Korkotadze, decided with her husband to adopt after learning they couldn't have children a year into their marriage.
"But adopting from an orphanage seemed virtually impossible due to incredibly long waiting lists," the 61-year-old economist said.
In 2005, an acquaintance told her about a six-month-old baby available for adoption from a local hospital - for a fee.
Korkotadze said she "realised that was my chance," and agreed.
"They brought Elene right to my house," Korkotadze said, never suspecting there was "anything illegal."
"It took months of excruciating bureaucratic delays to formalise the adoption through court," she said.
The tale of Anna and Elene mirrors that of another set of twin sisters -- Anna Sartania and Tako Khvitia.
They were separated at birth and sold to different parents, managing to reunite years later after finding each other on social media.
More than 800 families have been reunited thanks to Museridze's Facebook group.
Successive Georgian governments have made multiple attempts to investigate the scheme and have made a handful of arrests over the last 20 years.
Interior ministry spokesman, Tato Kuchava stressed that "investigation is underway" into Museridze's revelations, but declined to provide further details.
Georgia's Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze said last week in parliament that Tbilisi, its capital, is among the world leaders in combating trafficking.
But Museridze feels the state's response has been lacking: "The government did nothing tangible to help our efforts."
