Who knew organ donation would turn out to be a scam and a way for people to make money on the black-market, leaving lakhs of people to scum to death? While lakhs of patients die due to unavailability of kidneys at the appropriate time, over 15-30 thousand illegal operations occur each month. All this is just to earn some quick money at the expense of someone’s life.
Patients are lured in with promises of money and a healthy life, but more often than not they are left to die and aren’t even paid the money. Gang leaders are well-known for forcing them to join their group and threatening their families or their lives for the same. Let’s look at the different types of people and reasons as to why so many people get caught up in this web of lies!
The first kidney transplant in India was carried out in 1971. The activities related to transplantation grew gradually over time. The kidney, liver, lungs, pancreas, intestines, and heart are the organs that are transplanted most frequently. However, there are currently more patients in dire need of transplants than there are donors available.
The National Capital Region is the hub of this vast illegal organ trade. Police officers, physicians, hospital administrators, medical support employees, and kidney and liver donors are all included in the criminal web that serves patients with advanced liver and kidney failure. These people need transplants because they cannot be treated with medications or dialysis. In hopes of surviving and living a better life, they turn to these monsters and when left with no choice, they agree to pay whatever amount in exchange for a life-saving organ.
The donors are typically very poor people who need the money to survive or for medical emergencies. They are lured in under the false pretense of a routine medical checkup or are physically forced onto the surgery table. Indian organs are being sold thanks to word-of-mouth advertising by the poor in need. The country is dealing with an illegal organ trafficking mafia. In this instance, the gang was successful in creating false identities. Additionally, they were able to tamper with medical records and conduct testing with the aid of medical professionals.
A sizable database of people who were prepared to donate their kidneys and livers had been compiled by those in the industry. These individuals were subsequently hired by the company to discover additional sellers. They also observed that the average age of the donors and sellers is rapidly decreasing with each new scam that is exposed. Younger males are being enlisted or are volunteering to donate their livers or kidneys since they believe it is their responsibility as a male to take care of the family.
Back in 2020, the Bangalore police arrested six people who had duped over 200 innocent victims in this scam: the events leading up to were horrifying to read.
“Under the pretense of providing kidneys to individuals in need and advertising their willingness to purchase kidneys from donors, the group operated a fraudulent scheme. The preliminary investigations showed that they defrauded up to 200 individuals of somewhere between Rs. 50,000 and Rs. 60,000 each, which they claimed was an insurance and registration cost. They allegedly offered to sell his kidney for Rs. 2.5 crore to one of the fraud victims. He was first required to pay a registration charge of Rs. 40,000. The victim discovered the scam after he approached the hospital listed on their website for clarification after he hadn’t heard from them. The hospital began investigating as a result of this.”
There are more than 1000 cases that are seen every year in India; some of the criminals however manage to escape and are able to start somewhere else. The fact that the police department posts every arrest reveals how this is only the tip of the iceberg. In India, the rough figures state that there is a need of about 1.5 to 2 lakh kidney transplants every year, but only 8000 transplants happen. So, there is a huge gap between those who require the transplant and those who get it. Many people are losing their lives because of the scarcity of organ donors. Mainly because of this difference in demand and supply, illegal kidney rackets are surging in the country. These numbers show the extent of the crime. The infamous Apollo Kidney case involved the arrest of T. Rajkumar in 2016, who began new operations just two years later and was arrested again for the same in 2019.
Another accused, Dr. Amit Kumar, who has been arrested more than three times and was convicted by the CBI in 2013, was jailed for seven years continuously to find loopholes in the system for his nefarious trade. The biggest kidney scandal of India, known as Gurgaon Kidney scandal, came to light in January 2008 when police arrested several people for running a kidney transplant racket in Gurgaon along with him. He also claims that he is the victim of the system and not a criminal, as everyone believes him to be. There are buyers coming from foreign nations, and they are the big clients who can pay the big bucks in dollars or euros. A lot of these foreigners are also often arrested for buying kidneys from local poor villages of Haryana or Punjab, offering them more money.
This is a serious socio economic crisis. In other words, on one hand, you have this young police officer who busted this case and is very sincere, committed, and serious about her work, but on the other hand, for every person like that in the police department, there are dozens who will turn a blind eye. Twenty Kumars will remain at large for everyone who is convicted. Without a complete infrastructure, this was not possible. In India, there are just 500 legal kidney transplants performed each year, although there is at least a hundred times more demand.
But what do the government and the laws say about this?
The Government of India passed The Transplantation of Human Organs Act (THOA) in 1994 in response to the rise in kidney fraud and other organ frauds in general. This Act made the sale of organs a criminal offense and made the idea of brain death acceptable in India. The Act imposes penalties for people who participate in illicit organ transplant rackets under sections 18, 19, and 20.
It is evident that many members of the medical community are participating, including physicians, nurses, anesthesiologists, and paramedics in such heinous crimes. If stricter actions like life imprisonment, hanging and heavy fines aren’t implemented, the numbers of this scam will go higher every year. In the end, the question remains, why should innocent people keep losing lives for some money thirsty scammers?
Written by Jinal S Mehta
Edited by Yashvi Vasani
