Islamabad, Oct 2, (dpa/GNA) – Pakistani authorities have busted a gang, involved in the illegal trade in human kidneys and transplants, amid a gradual rise in transplant tourism in the country.
“The gang leader, a doctor, has confessed to conducting at least 328 illegal kidney transplants,” Punjab Chief Minister Mohsin Naqvi told reporters late Sunday.
Naqvi said those involved, had been harvesting kidneys, offering people money and sometimes without telling the victims, after tricking them by offering free treatment for other ailments.
The gang would charge local patients $10,000 and around charnge foreigners $35,000.
Last month, police in the eastern city of Lahore busted another kidney transplant racket, and rescued two foreigners undergoing a transplant procedure at a private farmhouse.
“Illegal trade of organs is once again thriving in the country,” an official from the Punjab Human Organ Transplant Authority (PHOTA) told dpa on Monday.
Pakistan was once a top destination for foreigners coming for organ transplants, until the practice was criminalized in 2010, with a punishment of up to 10 years in jail and a fine.
The law has not been able to control the practice, due to corruption and rising poverty, and there has been a resurgence of illegal trade in recent years.
The donors are often poor people, who sell organs for a few hundred dollars, and rarely receive post-operative care. Some die from complications.
GNA