Pakistan breaks up organ transplant gang selling villagers’ kidneys to wealthy foreigners
- The network included several people who would go to villages and small towns in Punjab province to convince people to sell their kidneys
- Wealthy foreign buyers pay up to US$50,000 for a kidney transplant but the donor hardly gets around US$3,000, a doctor said
At least 10 people including doctors and nurses were arrested when rangers from the Health Department and police raided a hidden clinic in the city of Rawalpindi near the capital Islamabad on Monday night.
Further raids were being conducted on Tuesday to arrest the remaining members of the network, said Akhtar, who led the team.
The network included several people who would go to villages and small towns in the central province of Punjab and convince people to sell kidneys to wealthy foreigners, mostly from Arab countries and some from Europe.
Wealthy foreign buyers pay up to US$50,000 for a kidney transplant, but the bulk of the money goes to middlemen and the donor hardly gets around US$3,000, according to a kidney doctor based in Islamabad.
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Pakistan enacted a law to control the illegal sale of body organs in 2010 that envisaged up to 10 years in jail and a fine for transplants other than at established hospitals.
But the law has not been able to control the practice due to corruption, rising poverty and established criminal gangs working beyond the country’s borders, experts said.
