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Organ Harvesting & Trafficking (The Human Organ Trade)

A Chinese organ harvesting / trafficking ring was busted, and the harvesters were convicted last July. However, this story is apparently surfacing in public view only now ...
Chinese doctors jailed for illegal organ harvesting

Six people including several doctors have been jailed in China for illegally harvesting organs from accident victims, report local media.

The group had tricked the families of the deceased into thinking they were making official organ donations.

Between 2017 and 2018 they removed the livers and kidneys from 11 people at a hospital in Anhui province.

China is grappling with a huge shortage of organs and has struggled to meet demand through public donations.

According to local reports, the trafficking ring included four high-ranking doctors, some of whom worked in organ procurement in hospitals.

Local media said they would target car crash victims or patients who suffered from cerebral haemorrhage at the Huaiyuan County People's Hospital in Anhui.

The hospital's head of the intensive care unit, Yang Suxun, would approach a patient's family members and ask if they would consent to donating their loved one's organs. The family members would sign what would later turn out to be fake consent forms. ...

The person would then be wheeled out of the hospital in the middle of the night, and put into a van made to look like an ambulance where doctors would remove the organs.

The organs would then be sold to individuals or other hospitals which members of the trafficking ring contacted secretly, according to reports.

They were eventually found out when the son of one of the victims grew suspicious. ...

FULL STORY: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-55097424
 
‘They are butchering a human for money’: Afghanistan’s poor sell their kidneys on the black market

Each of the young men hoist up their long shirts, revealing foot-long scars running along the sides of their bellies. The line showing off these surgical remnants is only a fraction of those in the neighbourhood who bear the same marks.

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In this poor suburb of the western Afghan city of Herat, at least 32 people have such scars among only 150 families says Ebrahim Hakimi, a local elder.

All of the men have been driven by poverty and desperation to sell a kidney in a flourishing illegal trade which is preying on the poor of the city, he says.

“All of these men could have become robbers or taken up arms for money, but they didn't. What they had was their kidneys. They sold them for their families.”

The prospect of selling a kidney has become a financial lifeline for the city's most despairing, the men said. Poverty has combined with the desperation of those needing transplants to create a thriving black market.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-...n-money-afghanistans-poor-sell-kidneys-black/

maximus otter
 
I remember this story from years ago, but it's not the only time I've heard of this type of thing happening.
Someone I knew told me a friend of hers had disappeared, he had gone to NYC and hadn't been heard from, and she was very worried.
His family finally heard from him about a week later - he had been walking down the road (he was a professional photographer if I remember correctly), and felt something sticking into him from behind.
Woke up many days later, in a room where he had been left in a bed, and he was in pain. He realized he was cut drastically, and found that one kidney had been removed and he was stitched back up.
He managed to get out of this building and was put into the hospital, where he recovered and was all right. Luckily he had been given antibiotics, etc., before they left him.
I've heard this particular incident happening a few times, apparently a donor is required and selected as they are walking down the road.
A true horror story, though haven't heard of anything in recent years, thank goodness.
If I hadn't known this woman who told me the story, I would have found it hard to believe that these things truly happen.
 
I remember this story from years ago, but it's not the only time I've heard of this type of thing happening.
Someone I knew told me a friend of hers had disappeared, he had gone to NYC and hadn't been heard from, and she was very worried.
His family finally heard from him about a week later - he had been walking down the road (he was a professional photographer if I remember correctly), and felt something sticking into him from behind.
Woke up many days later, in a room where he had been left in a bed, and he was in pain. He realized he was cut drastically, and found that one kidney had been removed and he was stitched back up.
He managed to get out of this building and was put into the hospital, where he recovered and was all right. Luckily he had been given antibiotics, etc., before they left him.
I've heard this particular incident happening a few times, apparently a donor is required and selected as they are walking down the road.
A true horror story, though haven't heard of anything in recent years, thank goodness.
If I hadn't known this woman who told me the story, I would have found it hard to believe that these things truly happen.
Happened in NYC? Most of those stories seem to originate from Mexico.
 
Happened in NYC? Most of those stories seem to originate from Mexico.
Yes, it was NYC. I recall this woman was in sheer panic over it, and so thankful that one of the NY hospitals took such good care of him.
And we have loved going to NYC, I mean everything is there, had many good times there. Now it is majorly expensive and I wouldn't feel safe.
 
For organ donation, you need people who have compatible tissue types. It doesn't really work to just grab strangers off the street.
 
For organ donation, you need people who have compatible tissue types. It doesn't really work to just grab strangers off the street.
That's right, and I would assume these people did that when they performed that operation.
True story, so you might want to ask them about it.
 
That's right, and I would assume these people did that when they performed that operation.
True story, so you might want to ask them about it.
True story or FOAF tale? Kidney removal isn't just a matter of slice in, cut out the kidney and stitch up the patient.
 
True story or FOAF tale? Kidney removal isn't just a matter of slice in, cut out the kidney and stitch up the patient.
I knew this woman for years, she was a schoolteacher, a serious person. This man was a friend of hers and she was just horrified over what happened to him. Kidney removal is very serious.
And it's not the only time I've heard of this happening, though not recently, at least not here.
There's a lot of pirates out there. My thoughts on the whole thing at the time was that these things were being sold.
 
Did she see the scars? Did she visit him in hospital?
 
I dont buy it.

Why leave a witness?

Surley its easier to kill someone than leave them alive?

(And better still go for the marketing of livers, which must be incredibly valuable).

What does Snopes have to say?
 
I dont buy it.

Why leave a witness?

Surley its easier to kill someone than leave them alive?

(And better still go for the marketing of livers, which must be incredibly valuable).

What does Snopes have to say?
Because then it becomes a murder investigation. Ditto for theft of a liver - that would be murder.
Murder investigations usually have some resources applied to them.
 
Because then it becomes a murder investigation. Ditto for theft of a liver - that would be murder.
Murder investigations usually have some resources applied to them.
But, due to the lack of reported prosecution it doesn't sound as though leaving this victim alive resulted in anyone being caught for this crime. I'm still dubious. Opening someone to take a kidney without tissue typing and huge surgical precautions sounds like a quick way to ensure someone dies on the spot, and that the resultant kidney is unusable.

What if you go to all the trouble of selecting a victim, sedating them, prepping the equipment, only to open them and find that their kidneys are already badly diseased?
 
Actually, thinking about Ronnie's story...I find myself wondering whether the man in question actually sold a kidney and made up the story to explain the subsequent scar.
 
But, due to the lack of reported prosecution it doesn't sound as though leaving this victim alive resulted in anyone being caught for this crime. I'm still dubious. Opening someone to take a kidney without tissue typing and huge surgical precautions sounds like a quick way to ensure someone dies on the spot, and that the resultant kidney is unusable.

What if you go to all the trouble of selecting a victim, sedating them, prepping the equipment, only to open them and find that their kidneys are already badly diseased?
Maybe they don't care about quality of kidney or even matching too much, because they were just asked to procure a kidney?
I don't know.
It has become an urban legend.
 
This was somewhere in the nineties, and I know that because we were living in another town and this woman was a neighbor. She was also a schoolteacher in town, for many years.
No one can be prosecuted if the victim didn't physically, consciously see what happened to him, and who did it.
I don't recall all the details now, and only remembered this because of ramonmercado's post about people being 'stuck' with needles, which is what happened to this man, his last memory was being stuck from behind.
As I said, it sounded unbelievable to me, but I knew the woman quite well.
Strange things happen.
 
But, due to the lack of reported prosecution it doesn't sound as though leaving this victim alive resulted in anyone being caught for this crime. I'm still dubious. Opening someone to take a kidney without tissue typing and huge surgical precautions sounds like a quick way to ensure someone dies on the spot, and that the resultant kidney is unusable.

What if you go to all the trouble of selecting a victim, sedating them, prepping the equipment, only to open them and find that their kidneys are already badly diseased?
Well it is used as a plot device in a lot of murder mystery shows, so maybe it happened once or twice? People found in a hotel bathtub full of what used to be ice obviously bled out because the kidney theif did not care about the "donor".
 
If they don't care about the donor, why take just one organ? You could disassemble them for parts. There is still the issue of tissue typing though, making it an impractical crime.
 
Just asked Mr. R about that incident, and he recalled it as well -
He said that at the time, organs were being sold on the black market.
Believe it or not.
 
I was born in NYC and lived there for most of my life, and have heard any number of weird stories, some of which were true, but never ran into this one as a resident. Here is Snopes on kidney stealing in NYC and other urban centers. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/youve-got-to-be-kidneying/ It's an urban legend. If anyone has evidence there's a reward offered but so far no takers. There is a black market for organs, but there is no substantiated event of any sourced in the US - they appear to come from outside the US purchased from the desperately poor or abused.
 
New Irish case.

There has been widespread shock in the local community after a woman in Drogheda reported to Gardai that she had been illegally trafficked and held against her will at a house in the town, and her captors had spoken of ‘harvesting her organs’.

Gardai confirmed they are investigating her claims, and carried out a number of house searches in the town, and the woman, said to be in her 20s, is being cared for by the State.

"Gardaí in Drogheda have received a report from a female non-national as described. This report is currently being assessed,” said a garda spokeswoman.

“The woman in this case is being supported by An Garda Síochána and is receiving other appropriate state supports at this time. Owing to the nature of the case we won’t be commenting at this time”.

https://www.independent.ie/regional...-by-woman-to-gardai-in-drogheda-41776306.html
 

Two arrested in UK over child organ harvesting plot​

Police in Britain said a man and a woman have been charged with conspiring to arrange to bring a child to the UK to harvest organs.

Beatrice Nwanneka Ekweremadu, 55, and Ike Ekweremadu, 60, both from Nigeria, have been formally charged with conspiracy to facilitate travel of another person with a view to exploitation, namely organ harvesting, London's Metropolitan Police said in a statement.

The pair will appear in Uxbridge Magistrates' Court later today.

They were taken into custody after an investigation by police, which had been alerted in May to potential offences under modern slavery legislation.

The child was being looked after, the police said.

Via RTE News.
 

Two arrested in UK over child organ harvesting plot​

Police in Britain said a man and a woman have been charged with conspiring to arrange to bring a child to the UK to harvest organs.

Beatrice Nwanneka Ekweremadu, 55, and Ike Ekweremadu, 60, both from Nigeria, have been formally charged with conspiracy to facilitate travel of another person with a view to exploitation, namely organ harvesting, London's Metropolitan Police said in a statement.

The pair will appear in Uxbridge Magistrates' Court later today.

They were taken into custody after an investigation by police, which had been alerted in May to potential offences under modern slavery legislation.

The child was being looked after, the police said.

Via RTE News.

More on the case.

Police said a child had been safeguarded and officers were working with partners on continued support.

The investigation was launched after detectives were alerted to potential modern slavery offences.

The charges follow an investigation by the Metropolitan Police's Specialist Crime team.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-61908876
 
Completely horrific. :(
 
One of the cases we researched was that of the 1831 murder of Caroline Walsh by Elizabeth Ross AKA Cook. She and her husband were both charged but only she ended up hanging - she was a very unsympathetic character. Witness put the husband there throughout but weirdly, he got off scot free.

The case was a few years after Burke and Hare so she was dubbed "The Female Burker". They sold the bodies to medics (it's thought) and the clothes were hawked at Rosemary Fair, a massive London secondhand clothing market. This way Ross maximised her profits - not just selling the bodies but their clothes too.

I came across her from the detailed clothing descriptions, originally. The lady she was convicted for was a street vendor of ribbons and pins etc, an elderly lady. But they were suspected of murdering maybe ten or more others, including a teenaged servant girl, Sarah Vasey. Apparently, Ross answered the door to an enquirer wearing Sarah's pretty bonnet. Reminded me of the time Rose West answered the door to an enquiring, grieving relative of a victim, wearing the victim's clothing.

As there was a roaring trade in secondhand clothing in the 19thC (most people wore secondhand clothes, as they were so expensive to make or buy new), it's likely Ross made more money from the clothes than the corpses.

She and her husband, wherever they moved in London, always got a reputation as cat killers - apparently wjerever they lived, cats vanished - they'd sell the fur.

There's an extant newspaper drawing of her and also, somewhere we found (and we use this gruesome pic in our talks) a pic of her drawn by the medic who did her post mortem. The life portrait of her is remarkably accurate, if you compare it to the dr's unflinching post mortem portrait. What's really shocking about it is that the chief prosecution witness was her child.

In the 19thC, you get the distinct feeling the clothes were worth more than the bodies.
 

Two arrested in UK over child organ harvesting plot​

Police in Britain said a man and a woman have been charged with conspiring to arrange to bring a child to the UK to harvest organs.

Beatrice Nwanneka Ekweremadu, 55, and Ike Ekweremadu, 60, both from Nigeria, have been formally charged with conspiracy to facilitate travel of another person with a view to exploitation, namely organ harvesting, London's Metropolitan Police said in a statement.

The pair will appear in Uxbridge Magistrates' Court later today.

They were taken into custody after an investigation by police, which had been alerted in May to potential offences under modern slavery legislation.

The child was being looked after, the police said.

Via RTE News.
What’s even more disturbing is he’s a senator, ex deputy president of the Senate, & a barrister.
 
Update.

A prominent Nigerian senator has appeared in court in London for a second time charged with arranging to bring a child to the UK for organ donation.

Ike Ekweremadu, 60, stood in the dock at Uxbridge Magistrates' Court wearing a grey tracksuit and holding a bible. He will next appear at Westminster Magistrates' court on 7 July. No bail application was made and Mr Ekweremadu will remain in custody.

Part of the alleged offence was committed abroad and as a result the consent of the attorney general is required for the case to continue.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-61992856
 
According to a YouTube coach, her friend went to the Dominican Republic for a cheap Brazilian Butt Lift and came home to find she was missing a kidney.
Woman Goes To The Dominican Republic For A Brazilian Butt Lift, Leaves Missing A Kidney

... A life coach by the name of Anita took to her YouTube channel to share the cautionary tale of her friend who traveled to the Dominican Republic for plastic surgery but ended up getting more than she bargained for. ...

According to Anita, known as Nordic Drip Coaching on YouTube, her friend became a victim of a cheap BBL nightmare after going to a doctor she found on Instagram.

“Around 7 months ago, my friend went to DR. She went to a doctor that she saw a girl post about on IG,” said Anita. “One thing you have to know about IG, is these girls get paid to promote these doctors. Whatever amount you pay towards that doctor is being CashApped to the same girl that’s like, ‘Oh yeah, say my name. Say I sent you.’ They’re getting a cut.”

According to Anita, her friend went through with the surgery, which included lipo and a tummy tuck for $3,500. However, when she returned to the United States for a post-op physical, she complained of headaches and body aches. After a visit to her doctor, she was informed that blood results showed her “kidney count was low.”

Her doctor then ordered a cat scan, revealing that Anita’s friend was missing a kidney.

“It shows up she only has one kidney,” said Anita. “So down in the DR, this botch organ-selling doctor took one of her kidneys, and she thought she was getting the steal of her life.” ...

According to Anita, her friend has been trying to reach the surgeon to no avail. The doctor has mysteriously disappeared and the woman on Instagram who referred her is allegedly a fake. Luckily, her friend is still alive and has been able to get the help she needs, but that hasn’t been the case for many women post-surgery. ...
FULL STORY (With Video): https://news.yahoo.com/woman-goes-dominican-republic-brazilian-111500382.html
 
“kidney count was low.”
Precisely 50% of normal in fact.

It sounds unlikely. According to this article she would have had an incision up to 30cm long. If it had been removed using keyhole surgery there would still be a series of small cuts.
 
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