NEW DELHI, India (CNN) -- Police in India have broken up what they call a global organ-trafficking scheme and are hunting its alleged mastermind, a doctor identified as Amit Kumar.
An Indian man named Shakil says he was drugged and his kidney removed against his will.
Authorities Tuesday asked for the public's help in tracking down Kumar after a raid last week on a home in Gurgaon, a city near New Delhi. Police characterized the scheme as an attempt to harvest kidneys from the poor and sell the organs to wealthy patients. At least one doctor was arrested, police said, and at least two patients -- one from Greece and the other from the United States -- initially were detained before being freed. Gurgaon Police Commissioner Mahendra Lal said the doctor confessed the ring carried out about 500 transplants over about 10 years in five states across India.
Lal said four doctors as well as nurses, medical technicians and others were involved in the the scheme, working out of a house in Gurgaon with an operating theater. Police also said they discovered a worldwide roster of 48 people waiting for transplants. Kumar, who also uses the alias Dr. Santosh Rameshwar Raut, may not be in India anymore, police said. Under Indian law, the sale of human organs is illegal, but the country has a flourishing black market. There have long been reports of poor Indians selling their kidneys and even giving them up by force in some cases. The problem is extensive enough for the Indian Health Ministry to be developing new legislation that lawmakers hope will stop the illegal organ trade. Shakil, a 28-year-old recovering from a transplant in a Gurgaon hospital, winced as he described how his kidney was forcibly removed. "Two armed guards took me to another room. They took blood samples ... forced me onto a stretcher and then they gave me an injection," he said. "When I woke up, I had pain in my waist and I was dizzy." Shakil and others in nearby hospital beds said a man approached them with promises of well-paying jobs. Instead, he brought them to the house in Gurgaon, they said. "The surgery has been done professionally, there's no doubt, by someone who is qualified and seems to know his job," said Sanjay Narula, a surgeon who is caring for the victims now.
Alleged Mastermind of Indian Organ Scam Arrested in Nepal
Friday, February 08, 2008
AP
KATMANDU, Nepal — Police arrested the alleged mastermind of an India-based kidney transplant racket at a resort in southern Nepal, officials said Friday. Authorities said Amit Kumar ran the ring from a New Delhi suburb that allegedly removed kidneys from up to 500 poor laborers and sold their organs to wealthy clients. Police suspect that dozens of doctors were involved in the kidney racket, which had a waiting list of some 40 people hailing from at least five countries. Kumar was arrested in the jungle resort in Chitwan by Nepalese police on Thursday night, said Kiran Gautam, police chief in Chitwan district, about 100 miles south of Katmandu. Gautam said Friday that Kumar has been being sent to Katmandu where officials will further investigate. Indian embassy officials in Katmandu were not immediately available for comments early Friday morning. Gautam said police have been looking for Kumar since reports surfaced in the Indian media that he might have fled to neighboring Nepal. Police were able to identify him because his photographs had been published in newspapers and broadcast on Indian television channels, Gautam said. Authorities said the scam, centered in Gurgaon — a posh suburb of New Delhi — used luxury cars outfitted with blood-testing machines to test donors on the fly as well as sophisticated surgical equipment hidden inside a residential neighborhood. Kumar, who has several aliases, and has been accused in past organ transplant schemes elsewhere in India.
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An Indian man named Shakil says he was drugged and his kidney removed against his will.
Watch as victims show their surgical scars »
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