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Black market kidney traders sentenced in Jiangxi
Staff Reporter
2014-08-17
A different organ selling crime ring on trial for selling kidneys in Hangzhou, Feb. 22, 2013. (File photo/Xinhua)
Twelve defendants facing charges of selling human organs on the black market were sentenced to two years to nine years and six months in jail by the people's court in Qingshanhu, Nanchang in Jiangxi province in July.
According to the investigation, the group of convicts was led by Chen Feng, who chairs a pharmaceutical firm in Guangzhou. The firm removed kidneys from 23 living donors between October 2011 and February 2012, thereby earning illegal gains of 1.6 million yuan (US$253,500).
Chen told the police that he had built relations with many doctors on organ transplant teams in many hospitals due to his pharmaceutical business.
Zhu Yunsong, a doctor responsible for kidney transplants in Guangzhou told Chen that kidney donations were insufficient and hoped that Chen would help find alternative sources.
Chen said that his participation in kidney sales started because he wanted to maintain his relations with medical professionals and boost his pharmaceutical business.
The crimes involved people from both Jiangxi and Guangdong. A majority of the members in the kidney-selling ring were once donors or recipients in organ transplants and many of them had voluntarily joined the illegal operation because their physical condition did not allow them to work taxing jobs after having one of their kidneys removed.
Liu Yongdong, who needed a healthy kidney after being diagnosed with uremia, said that when he wanted to buy a kidney on the black market, he discovered how profitable the industry was and decided to join the organ selling ring.
He added that he was responsible for contacting doctors and nurses and could earn 10,000 yuan (US$1,624) from a single sale.
Chinese-language The Beijing News reported that the removed kidneys were shipped to Guangzhou labeled as seafood.
The long-standing shortage of living donors of organs has boosted the sale of body parts on the black market, the paper reported.
Living donors, who are mostly men aged in their twenties or early thirties, stay in rented accomodation provided by the ring before finding matching recipients and the surgeries are conducted at private hospitals.
They usually decide to sell their kidney because they need cash urgently for various reasons, including paying off debts or gathering funds to get married.
