Chinese man pleads guilty for involvement in organ transplant racket
Prosecutor seeks five-year jail term for middleman’s role after patient dies during failed surgery
A 30-year-old man pleaded guilty on Wednesday in a Beijing court for his involvement in an organ transplant racket, which led to the death of a patient from kidney failure. The patient, Zhang Yong, 45, died of an anaesthesia overdose during the transplant.
Zhang, who needed to undergo dialysis thrice a week, tapped the black market for a kidney transplant last June, according to a report in The Beijing Times.
Zhang met with the middleman, from Inner Monogolia’s Chifeng city and identified by his surname Cui, last May outside a mall in Beijing’s Haidan district, where he agreed to pay him 420,000 (HK$501,000) yuan for the transplant.
Once the deal was struck, Zhang and cousin, Zhang Jun, visited a rundown building in rural parts of Linyi, Shandong province, to procure the kidney from an 18-year-old donor, in lieu of 43,000 yuan.
Two doctors and a nurse in her 50s conducted the botched-up surgery on June 19, 2015.