Pakistan police bust illegal organ harvesting ring, apprehend eight suspects for kidney trafficking to wealthy clients.
Pakistan police have revealed that they arrested eight suspects after uncovering an illegal organ harvesting ring for surgically removing kidneys from more than 300 victims for wealthy people in need of transplants, CNN reports on Tuesday, October 3.
The chief minister of Pakistan’s Punjab province, Mohsin Naqvi, said the alleged gang leader simply identified as Dr Fawad has been accused of “conducting 328 operations on people to remove their kidney and selling them to clients for up to 10 million Pakistani rupees ($34,000) each”, adding that Fawad was “allegedly assisted in the operation by an unnamed car mechanic who administered the anesthesia.” Naqvi added that the gang lured patients from hospitals and performed private operations on them in the region of Taxila, the city of Lahore and in Pakistan-administered Kashmir. He said: “They were able to do this in Kashmir because there is no law regarding kidney transplants, so it was easier for them to carry out the operations there.” “There must be more operations that must have been carried out, the number is the only ones we’ve confirmed” as he confirmed that three deaths have been recorded. Naqvi also revealed that some of the patients whose organs were harvested had no idea their kidneys were removed.
