"Sold a kidney? Bring a friend to get money!": a gang of organ dealers was caught in Cairo

A gang selling donor organs was caught in Egypt. The person who gave the kidney was paid 25%, the rest was given only when he brought a donor friend. The wildest action is "Bring a friend".

The number of people waiting for a transplant is growing faster than the number of donors. High demand and low supply affect the fact that the trade in human organs on the black market is greater than ever. Organ trafficking is especially active in poor countries.

The other day in the Egyptian capital, the police managed to get on the trail of a gang of doctors and intermediaries who were selling donor kidneys. Organs were taken from patients in a private clinic in Cairo.

The criminals were looking for "donors" through intermediaries. They became people in need of money. For 25 thousand Egyptian pounds (1,4 thousand in US dollars, or 79 thousand rubles), they were persuaded to sell a kidney. Then the "donors" came to Cairo, where they lived in a rented apartment for several days and passed tests. The reception of such "patients" was conducted in his private office by one of the detained doctors. Then the "donor" was transported to the clinic, where the surgeon involved in the gang's activities performed the operation.

As the victims of the criminals told, before the operation they were paid five thousand pounds (less than $ 300, or 17 thousand rubles). The remaining amount was paid after the next donor appeared. Former patients were forced to look for new people willing to sell a kidney, otherwise they would not receive payment for their organ.

The lion's share of money for transactions with organs on the black market goes into the pockets of criminal groups. On average, the price of a kidney for transplantation on the black market is 150 thousand dollars, or 850 thousand rubles. At the moment, all members of the gang are detained, the victims give testimony.

Usually black transplantologists rub themselves into the confidence of people in need and tell fairy tales about the fact that selling organs is not so scary and you can quite live with one kidney. Although, in fact, the damage caused to health from the removal of organs is incomparable with the reward that desperate people receive.

Such black organ transplantation schemes arise due to the lack of a clear legal mechanism for organ donation. In China, for example, they began to fight this practice in 2007, and at first the local authorities solved the problem in a non—trivial way - they began to use the organs of prisoners, sometimes even without their consent. In 2013, another way was found — it was decided to create an analogue of the American system of distribution of donor organs, the United Network for Organ Sharing.