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Stolen Organs: Urban Legends / Folklore

liveinabin

Gone But Not Forgotten
(ACCOUNT RETIRED)
Joined
Oct 19, 2001
Messages
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Now we all know the UL about a guy who passes out at a party and come round in a bath full of ice to find that he is missing a kidney. Well I had always assumed that it was a hoax but then I thought again.
I'm sure you noticed in the news recently that a doctor was struck off because he had been found trafficing human organs from live donors. Well as part of this story they were talking to the man who was investigating this and other problems of live donor transfers. He said that although most of the donors we very poor people in India etc. who knew what they were doing and were willing to take the risk for £1000 or so; some of them where not aware that this was what was going to happen. He said that he had come across some cases of people who had been smuggled into the UK and the States on false papers, thinking that when they got there they could just nic off and find their family. But no, when they got there they where told by the smugglers that the cost of their passage was a kidney. Being in a strange country and on false papers they were to afraid argue and had the organ forceably removed!
 
I've heard that in Japan you can 'bet' an organ for another or a substantial amount of money. :_omg: Anyone else heard this? Plus I have seen a movie where this went on soo, maybe there is a grain of truth in it?
 
Maybe it happens everywhere....ack! A while back there was a scandal about organs being removed from mainly dead children for scientific purposes without the parents' consent.

Also, another organ related UL. A very helpful family member of mine informed me in all seriousness that having a 'doner card' left the hospitals with the right to a kidney/eyeball/lung. Complete tosh. Still, you don't think it possible 'they' may just help themselves if you need surgery, or worse, let you just die :eek: if you're involved in an accident?:splat:
 
They can have whatever they want of me once I'm dead, provided there's anything left.
 
Yeah but these kids were catholic and I think the way it goes is with the body desecrated there is no resting in peace.

Here's another nice little factoid, when operating in the local, it is normal practice to whip out your appendix and anything else growing in there not doing you any good. Its a bit like internal weeding.

Did you ever hear of hospitals keeping vast rooms full of old removed body parts in jars? :cross eye
 
Murphy said:
Yeah but these kids were catholic and I think the way it goes is with the body desecrated there is no resting in peace.

I thought that was the Egyptians...? All these missionaries who get chomped by lions and things must still be haunting the jungles, eh?
 
Murphy said:
Yeah but these kids were catholic and I think the way it goes is with the body desecrated there is no resting in peace.
Religion (AFAIK) had little or nothing to do with the scandal surrounding that particular childrens hospital. The parents were mainly concerned with the fact their children had had all or most of their internal organs removed. Not only without the parents consent, but with the hospital at first denying it had ever happened.
 
Murphy said:
I've heard that in Japan you can 'bet' an organ for another or a substantial amount of money. :_omg: Anyone else heard this? Plus I have seen a movie where this went on soo, maybe there is a grain of truth in it?

It's also the topic of an episode of the X-Files.
 
Red Dalek said:
It's also the topic of an episode of the X-Files.

Can I shake you by the hand? :)
The episode was called Hell Money. I have it on DVD.

*realises how geeky she sounds and so runs away* :blush:
 
Religion (AFAIK) had little or nothing to do with the scandal surrounding that particular childrens hospital. The parents were mainly concerned with the fact their children had had all or most of their internal organs removed. Not only without the parents consent, but with the hospital at first denying it had ever happened.

Excuse me if it sounded like I put the whole thing down to religion, although the parents interviewed (one mother in particular) expressed the fear their children could never rest in peace without the return of the stolen organs. So I think that would still be a pretty big factor in why it was so horrifying, not just because of religion. So fair enough. If memory serves correctly the hospital couldn't replace the organs as they had cremated them? It just seems like a moral black hole.

Anyone been on an Edinbourgh ghost tour? They tell a good grisly tale of graves being exhumed for fresh corpses, even how these body snatchers might suffocate the odd person or two. Aparrantly the old Uni's needed the bodies for budding medical students and general experiments. Ok, it's slightly off topic -stolen organs, not persons and the stories probably have been embellished somewhat for us tourists. Also, AFAIK=? So thanks for Ur time folkies.

And now I'm going to go rent that episode of the X-Files...:D
 
Murphy said:
Excuse me if it sounded like I put the whole thing down to religion
You're excused :p

, although the parents interviewed (one mother in particular) expressed the fear their children could never rest in peace without the return of the stolen organs. So I think that would still be a pretty big factor in why it was so horrifying, not just because of religion.

Fair comment, I haven't seen all the interviews relating to this case.

So fair enough. If memory serves correctly the hospital couldn't replace the organs as they had cremated them? It just seems like a moral black hole.

Some of the organs had apparently been kept for 'research' purposes, but DEFINITELY a moral black hole

... Also, AFAIK=? So thanks for Ur time folkies.

AFAIK = As Far As I Know (I think ;) )
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Spooky angel said:
Can I shake you by the hand? :)
The episode was called Hell Money. I have it on DVD.

*realises how geeky she sounds and so runs away* :blush:

What's the significance of 'Hell Money'?

The standard lollipop up for grabs again...
 
*rubs hands in glee at thought of discussing X Files ep*

The hell money ep was about a crooked lottery being run where they paid to enter and if their name was chosen, then they had to choose a chip from the pot. The chip in theory could have been to win the jackpot, but if the wrong chip was chosen it depicted a body part, and the entrant had to donate that body part, which the organisers were then selling on the black market.

It wasn't really an X File, but it was rivetting in a horrific way.
 
I saw a [US] documentary on the Beeb years ago which dealt with the subject of how they test to see if a person's dead or not [tapping the cornea, ice water in the ear] in the absence of a pulse or respiration. They talked to people who'd been so deeply comatose that they didn't react to the tests are were declared dead, but were fully aware of what was going on around them ... :eek!!!!: Apparently in these circumstances the "corpse" can be taken to the OR and the organs removed for transplant purposes, with the chilling voice over "if they weren't dead when they entered the operating room, they certainly are now" :eek!!!!: :eek!!!!:
An awful lot of people stopped carrying donor cards after seeing this ...
 
I hate to say this...but...

If you were to take an organ from a body, would you wait until the person was dead and no blood pumping around the body
or...
almost dead and blood still pumping through the organ you desire.
After all, who are they going to complain to afterwards?

Which is why I threw away my donor card.
 
So, uh

just when did they talk to them?

"They talked to people who'd been so deeply comatose that they didn't react to the tests are were declared dead, but were fully aware of what was going on around them ... Apparently in these circumstances the "corpse" can be taken to the OR and the organs removed for transplant purposes, with the chilling voice over "if they weren't dead when they entered the operating room, they certainly are now"
 
lutzman said:
I hate to say this...but...

If you were to take an organ from a body, would you wait until the person was dead and no blood pumping around the body
or...
almost dead and blood still pumping through the organ you desire.
After all, who are they going to complain to afterwards?

Which is why I threw away my donor card.

i don't think that it is *that much* in the doctors' interests to transplant your organs that they would do something so nasty. they are human beings too, remember, and i expect that there is a good deal of paperwork needed in order to prove that the person is dead before the organs are removed.

personally i am prepared to take the risk in order to have a chance of saving lives after i'm dead, so i am on the organ donation register.

uk residents can add themselves to the NHS register online:
http://www.uktransplant.org.uk/how_to_become_a_donor/how_to_become_a_donor.htm
 
I think there needs to be some distinction made between people who willingly sell something like a kidney and people who are abducted, murdered etc. (allegedly) for their organs.
An organ transplant is pretty complicated isn't it? I have no medical training, but there have to be tests, etc. done to make sure sure donor and recipient are compatible. Therefore, it would make no sense to snatch someone off the street and hope their organs were compatible with someone else. There are also other things like anti-rejection drugs involved. Therefore, I have always thought that the stories of random people being abducted for organs is a UL.

sureshot
 
Chinese loansharks attempt to force man to sell kidney to pay back debts

Thu Jul 8, 9:53 AM ET

SHANGHAI, China (AP) - Talk about extracting 500 grams of flesh.




Alleged loansharks tried to force a Shanghai man to sell one of his kidneys to pay back a 30,000 yuan (,750 Cdn) debt, the Shanghai Daily reported Thursday. The two men kidnapped habitual gambler Lu Ronfeng and demanded doctors at a city hospital remove the organ, the Shanghai Daily reported Thursday.

Turned away, they decided to take him to the inland province of Anhui for the operation, but Lu escaped in the hospital parking lot and ran to a policeman.

One of the alleged loansharks, Li Shenghe, was arrested on the spot and has been charged with illegally holding Lu, it said. Li denied trying to make Lu sell his kidney. His accomplice escaped.

"Whether they forced Lu to sell his kidney or not, the fact is they detained him illegally," the paper quoted prosecutor Zheng Haiquan as saying.

China is an international centre for organ transplants, many of them allegedly taken from the bodies of executed criminals.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1835&e=20&u=/cpress/oddity_china_kidney_kidnappers
 
A blood-curdling Guardian article some years ago described how organ donors had to be restrained even though they were brain-dead because the pain-defence reflexes are so strong that the 'dead' person's arms will rise up and appear to try to fight off the doctors. :eek!!!!:

Scared me anyway. It seems that numbers of UK card-carriers dropped after that article. Wonder why. :rolleyes:

Abducting strangers in order to steal their organs would work if the criminals had a back-up organisation, eg a waiting list with different requirements, enough doctors, nurses and ancilliary staff with families vulnerable to threats, somewhere to dispose of the victims' bodies and so on. Sounds a little science fiction.

Also, organ transplants don't always take. The criminals would need a 'returns' policy!
 
Yes the chances of ejection etc are pretty high aren't they?

I suppose the main protagonist of anything like this would be a rogue doctor who'd have access to medical records, blood types etc. and would be "advising " gangs on potential victims, even then your looking at having to engineer a situation to get the bits out and then get them into the recipient...

Maybe this myth/legend is a deep routed fear of doctors coupled with a worry for losing control?

I have no doubt there's rogue doctors out there doing something naughty like selling peoples bits bits and arranging transplants, there's a rogue element in every profession but I remain sceptical of the "classic" UL of waking up with bit's missing after being drugged at a party taken by some gang on the off chance.
 
Law & Order did an episode about someone being targetted for organs. ("Sonata for Solo Organs", first aired 1991) I've been pawing through episode guides, trying to remember how the bad guys knew who to go after for a kidney, but can't come up with anything. I think it was the surgeon himself--needed an kidney for his wife or daughter, and went through the blood donors' list or something.

I'll let myself out, shall I?
 
I wonder how this one will turn out? UL or actual organ-legging, will we ever know?

Madagascar mob kills Europeans over 'organ trafficking'
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-24380937

Two European men have been burnt to death in Madagascar by protesters who suspected they were trafficking human organs after a child went missing.

A local man had been arrested in connection with the disappearance on Wednesday on Nosy Be, a tourist island resort in Madagascar's north-west.

A crowd then rioted outside the police station believing him to have been paid to remove the child's organs.

The mob proceeded on "a manhunt" for the foreigners, police said.

"It resulted in the death of two foreigners," the deputy commander of the paramilitary police, Gen Guy Randriamaro Bobin, told the AFP news agency.

Officials initially said they were French nationals, but residents on Nosy Be say one of the men may have been Italian.

"Two foreigners died, we have confirmed that one of them was French," AFP quotes France's foreign affairs spokesman Philippe Lalliot as saying.

Gen Randriamaro Bobin said an eight-year-old boy's lifeless body was found on Thursday morning, without genitals and without a tongue, the agency reports.

Local media reported that the protesters had found human organs in a fridge in the building where the Europeans were staying.

The BBC's Tim Healy in the capital, Antananarivo, says Nosy Be is the jewel in the crown of Madagascar's tourist industry and has been used to encourage tourists to return to the Indian Ocean nation following several years of political unrest.

Text alerts
According to reports, at least one person was also killed in the violence that erupted outside the police station.

Police fired shots in the air to disperse the protesters, who had been hurling stones.

Fishermen carry fishing nets on a beach - Madagascar, 2006
Tourism has been affected by Madagascar's political crisis and most islanders live on less than $2 a day
The mob then burnt down houses around the station before going on to find the home of the two foreigners.

"They confessed under torture [by the mob] to organ trafficking," Gen Randriamaro Bobin told AFP.

Our correspondent says the incident may have political undertones as elections are scheduled to take place on 25 October and there are tensions nationwide.

Poor communities' fears of human organ trafficking have been exploited in the past by those wanting to stir up tensions or as a means of revenge for another issue, our reporter says.

Instances of mob justice are common in Madagascar, he adds.

The French embassy in Madagascar has sent out text alerts warning French nationals not to travel to Nosy Be and urging foreigners on the island resort to remain indoors and not go to the beach where it is reported the foreigners were burnt.

"The two Europeans were killed and burnt on Ambatoloaka beach," AFP quotes Honoya Tilahizandry, the commissioner of police in Andoany, Nosy Be's main town, as saying.

A regional government official on Nosy Be blamed for the paramilitary police's lax response to the case was reportedly kidnapped on Wednesday.


Edit to fix typo.
 
Quoting a sentence of RamonMercardos post
Gen Randriamaro Bobin said an eight-year-old boy's lifeless body was found on Thursday morning, without genitals and without a tongue, the agency reports.
Isnt that what happens to mutilated cattle in a supposed UFO incident?
 
Yes.
I can't imagine what organ traffickers would do with a child's tongue or genitals - those aren't items that can be transplanted (AFAIK). Perhaps some black magic/voodoo/muti reason instead?
Or, as Shady says - UFO-related?
 
It hadn't been mentionned for seven years, but it appears that the story of Dr Santosh Raut a.k.a. Amit Kumar and the network he allegedly ruled in India had some solid basis in fact :

http://www.smh.com.au/national/dr-horror-made-rich-on-body-parts-20100301-pdla.html

'Dr Horror' made rich on body parts
March 2, 2010

AUSTRALIA has been dragged into the investigation of an Indian medic known as ''Dr Horror'' who is accused of running illegal clinics that duped poor labourers into selling their kidneys and then peddled them to wealthy clients.

Legal sources involved in the case say Australians are among hundreds of foreigners who paid Amit Kumar for organ transplants, while authorities in Delhi say he invested some of the millions he allegedly made on properties in NSW and Queensland. Indian investigators believe Kumar also has a bank account in Australia.

The Age has learnt that a money laundering case against Kumar, who was arrested in Nepal in 2008 after a manhunt, is being delayed by the Australian Federal Police who have yet to respond to a 16-month-old request from Indian investigators to look into Kumar's investments.

The charge sheet against Kumar, prepared by India's Central Bureau of Investigation, says he received payment from foreign kidney recipients in foreign bank accounts. He has accounts in Delhi with the international bank ABN Amro.

''There were a lot of patients from Australia,'' a legal source told The Age, although this could not be verified. The charge sheet confirms that he had many foreign clients but provides few details on their nationalities.

The Indian agency investigating the alleged money laundering, the Enforcement Directorate, wants Australian authorities to assist with ''examining various persons'' in relation to Kumar's affairs.

A source said: ''We are sure that he has two properties in Australia and that he may have visited your country at some point in recent years. The homes are in NSW and Queensland. We have written to authorities in Canada, Hong Kong and Australia asking for them to investigate Amit Kumar's assets overseas but we are still waiting for a response from your country and Hong Kong.''

The directorate has identified houses worth about $4.5 million across India in his possession.

The AFP refused to discuss the case, saying: ''It is not appropriate for us to comment in regard to an investigation conducted by foreign law enforcement agencies.''

When police raided a property used as a clinic by Kumar in Gurgaon, a wealthy satellite town of Delhi, in January 2008, they found five ''donors'', three of whom had recently had their kidneys removed and needed to be taken to hospital.

Also detained at a nearby guesthouse were five foreign clients; three were Greek, while two were Americans of Indian descent.

Britons, Turks and Saudis are among the other nationalities confirmed to be paying clients.

Kumar is not a surgeon or a physician trained in mainstream modern medicine. Rather, he has a degree in the traditional Indian Ayurvedic system of medicine and says he learnt how to transplant kidneys ''by associating himself'' with surgeons.

Kumar and his co-accused have been in jail for two years but the final charges against them are still being ''framed''. Court papers allege that middlemen linked to Kumar attracted destitute labourers with promises of jobs that came with board and lodging, but then offered cash for their kidneys when they arrived at properties he controlled.

Many who refused claim they were drugged and had their organ removed without consent, while others have alleged they were threatened at gunpoint.

Eight others people have been charged, including his brother Jevan Kumar and doctors Upender Dubesh, Krishna Kumar Aggawal and Sarj Kumar Govind.

Police say 400 to 500 kidney transplants were performed by the syndicate over a nine-year period. A source said that a former Indian prime minister contacted Kumar for a kidney transplant.

Although selling an organ has been illegal in India since 1994, a black market has emerged, with some of the nation's poorest people offering kidneys to pay off debts.

Those who sold to Kumar were promised about $A1000 to $A2500.

The charge sheet against Kumar says that he charged Indian kidney recipients between about $A18,000 and $A45,000 for their transplants.

Since his arrest it emerged Kumar was detained and charged for illegal transplants in Mumbai in 1994.

At that time he fled to the north Indian city of Jaipur where he changed his name from Santosh Rameshwar Raut to Amit Kumar and continued doing illegal transplants.

Seven policemen have been arrested for accepting bribes from Kumar and it is believed he was able to avoid proper investigation for years with the help of corrupt officers.

He started the lucrative clinic in Gurgaon in 1999.

While there are no laws in Australia banning people from travelling overseas to buy an organ, medics insist the practice is dangerous.

« Many who refused [to sell their organs] claim they were drugged and had their organ removed without consent, while others have alleged they were threatened at gunpoint » : it seems that the harvesting of organs against the donor's will by organized networks does happen sometimes, despite the theoritical objections raised against their existence.

See also :
http://archive.indianexpress.com/ne...in-transplanted-his-racket-to-gurgaon/265612/
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/story?id=4224506&page=2
 
I came across this odd older story that I didn't see otherwise mentioned on FTMB, so I thought I'd post here. It doesn't say what organs were missing or how they were removed:

http://www.11alive.com/news/local/l...ar-death-valley-with-missing-organs/442199392
Georgia model vanishes, body found with organs missing
Vinnie Politan , Tiffany McCall
A model from Atlanta takes a trip to L.A. While driving back to Las Vegas, his rental car breaks down in Death Valley. Highway patrol spots him and brings him to a gas station. While waiting for his friend, he vanishes.
What happened to Ryan?
It was in the dead heat of Summer, July 2013. Ryan Singleton, a model from Atlanta, flew to Los Angeles for a weekend trip, but never made it home.
Ryan rented a car to drive from Los Angeles to Las Vegas. Nearly an two and a half hours into the five-hour drive, the car broke down in Death Valley.
California Highway Patrol spotted him walking along the highway, picked him up and drove him to the nearest gas station in Baker, California. While waiting for his friend from Los Angeles to pick him up, he vanished.
His body was found 74 days later, nearly two miles away from the gas station, without his organs.

Rising Star
“I’m glad that he did go. He took the courage and he went. He was brave. Ryan was never afraid to try anything. He was never afraid. Most things he tried, he mastered," said Iris Flowers.
Iris remembers her son’s journey to stardom. At 21 years old, Ryan left his mother's home in Georgia for New York City to pursue his dream of becoming a model. With her son being miles away for the first time, she was as nervous as any parent would be. Iris followed her son on social media to keep up with his latest ventures. She remembers the day she felt all his hard work wasn't in vain. He landed a spot on the runway during New York's Fashion Week.
“Of course I’m at home worrying, but eventually I saw it on Facebook where he was walking down the runway Fashion Week with a pair of gold shorts on. I’m like, alright, he is doing what he wants to do," she said.
Soon Ryan set his eyes on Hollywood.
He aspired to become an actor and pursue film production. He and a group of friends packed their belongings in a U-Haul truck and left New York for Los Angeles. They documented their cross country journey.
“A lot of things that happened on that trip, he recorded it. A lot of his production team members have a lot of their lives together recorded. So, soon people will be able to see that,” Iris said.
The film, currently in the works, is a docuseries called, “Are We famous Yet?” Ryan's three friends, now filmmakers, are telling Ryan's story in hopes to find the truth behind his death. They share the process of making this True Crime docuseries on Facebook and Instagram.
Ryan eventually decided to leave his production team in Los Angeles and head back to New York. He married celebrity stylist Kythe Brewster. Flowers found out about her son's nuptials on Facebook.
“I find out on social media Ryan has gotten married to a man twice his age. I don’t even know who this is. I don’t even have a clue as to what’s going on. It was a total shock," she said.
Just four months later, Ryan and Kythe separated. Ryan moved back in with his mother in Georgia who sensed something was wrong. Iris remembered a conversation she had with her son:
“Something bad is going to happen to me isn’t it?” Ryan asked his mother.
"Ryan, what are you talking about?" she responded.
Iris asked her son if he owed someone money and he said no.
"I've done a lot of things to hurt a lot of people," Ryan replied.
Iris said she never found out exactly what Ryan was talking about.
"I don't know if he felt some kind of way because he left the (production) team, married Kythe and it didn't work out with Kythe and now he's home. He knew he hurt me by disappearing and not communicating with me. Anybody outside of that, I couldn't figure out who it could be," she told 11Alive.
Two days later Ryan abruptly left for Los Angeles again. This was the last time Iris saw her son alive.
Ryan goes missing. A timeline of events:
June 2010 – Leaves home in Georgia for New York to become a model. He later heads to Los Angles to pursue film production.
December 2012 – Leaves production crew in Los Angeles, returns to New York and marries Kythe Brewster - a celebrity stylist.
April 2013 - July 2013 – Returns to Atlanta, separates from husband.
July 2013 – Tells mom he is going to Las Vegas to try out for football team. (She said she later realized that wasn't the case.)
July 9, 2013 – Ryan calls his mother in the morning asking her to send him $100 via Western Union to Nevada.
July 9, 2013 - Mom receives call from Kythe, Ryan’s estranged husband. Mother tells Kythe that Ryan is on the West Coast. Kythe tells mother that Ryan called him and it seemed he had been drinking. Kythe tells Iris that Ryan’s life could be in danger.
July 9, 2013 – Mother speaks with Barstow Co. Detective who told her Ryan was seen walking down the highway at 2 p.m. by CA Hwy Patrol. Ryan tells deputies his car broke down. Deputies took Ryan to look for the car but couldn’t locate it. Deputies took Ryan to the closest town, Baker, CA where they dropped him off at convenience store. Deputies said Ryan made a purchase, walks out of store and vanishes.
July 10, 2013 – Ryan's car is found in Barstow County a few miles north of where deputies and Ryan initially searched for the car.
July 11, 2013 – The case was assigned to another detective who informed the Iris that her son was receiving money from multiple people.
Sept. 21, 2013 – Ryan’s body is found by two joggers/hikers with his organs missing about two miles from the convenience store where he was last seen. This is within the 5 miles radius that authorities intensively searched.
The autopsy report lists the cause and manner of death as undetermined.
 
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