Local Procuratorate in Bejing has prosecuted 16 suspects of organ trafficking recently, the Beijing News reports.
The case involving organ traffickers and surgeons was described by an unnamed official as the biggest organised organ trafficking case in China’s history.
The traffickers conducted 51 kidney removal operations and the money involved in this case exceeded 10m Yuan (£1m).
Zheng Wei, the principal suspect of the case haired surgeons from Anhui Province in the name of a famous Beijing hospital.
Doctors usually arrived in the morning and left on the same day after 3 to 6 kidney removal operations.
Most operations were conducted at a hospital in Southeastern China Xuzhou city and a villa in Beijing during a 9 month period from March 2010 to December 2010.
The villa was dirty and poorly equipped according to the one of the suspect.
The traffickers first advertised online, and then contacted and arranged “donors” – people who were willing to sell their kidneys for money. After the kidney removal operation, each “donor” would be compensated from 20,000 Yuan (£2k) to 25,000 Yuan (£2.5k) for their kidney.
Most “donors” sold their kidney for economic needs and did not consider themselves as victims. Some of them even suggested the money-for-kidney conduct as a fair trade.
The kidneys removed were sold to uraemia patients in need of new kidneys
In 2010, Japanese television reported that a group of “transplant tourists” paid £50,000 to receive kidney transplant in China.
Organ trafficking is illegal under China’s laws. However, the great demand of organ transplant and the relatively loose penalty on organ trafficking results in the prosperity of organ black market.
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