Kenyan police are investigating whether a pastor who claims miraculous powers to make infertile women pregnant may be involved in child trafficking.

Gilbert Deya, a Kenyan pastor who heads the British-based Gilbert Deya Ministries, claims to exorcise demons from women who are unable to conceive naturally by praying for them. The women, some of whom are past menopause, are then brought to Kenya where they supposedly give birth and return to London with babies, police said.

“We believe in God, but we do not think God works that way. These are not miracle babies, they belong somewhere,” Criminal Investigations Department spokesman Gideon Kibunja said on Friday. “We are interviewing the people found with the children ... We suspect it is a child smuggling ring.”

Police discovered, on Tuesday, 11 children aged between five months and 12 years living in Nairobi with a 56-year-old woman who said she conceived them without having sex with her husband after Deya’s wife prayed for her.

The couple are under arrest and the children have been transferred to a home in the Kenyan capital. Kibunja said police were arranging for DNA tests to be carried out on the children, with the results expected this week.