Organ Thefts

[dead breed]

WOW, I just saw a documentary that my Dad was watching and this is amazing.

A man went to Brazil and went to a club where a girl came up to him and gave him a few drinks, and then she invited him back to her room. He passed out, and the next thing he remembered he woke up in a bath tub full of ice. Blood was everywhere and when he moved he noticed there was a scar on his side. He called the local authorities, and there was nothing they could do to find the criminal who did this to him.

It reminded me of Hostel or something.

Its said you can get up to $10,000 for a good kidney. Organ theft is a big problem in Brazil. Over 4000 cases of this happen each year.

This isn't something new to me but I was just shocked at how easily it can happen.

Thoughts on this?

[thrEE6MAfia]

im never going to brazil

[FrighT MasteR]

Just an urban legend. You'd need the right environment, tools, and a professional to be able to remove any organs without damaging'em. On top of that, somehow still keeping the patient alive? A mere tub of ice won't simply do the trick. What would the point of keeping the individual alive be anyway? They've already committed the crime, if he was killed at least that's one less witness.

[Cataclysm]

Thoughts on this?

It's a load of bullshit.

[dead breed]

Just an urban legend. You'd need the right environment, tools, and a professional to be able to remove any organs without damaging'em, on top of that, somehow keeping the patient alive. A mere tub of ice won't simply do the trick.

It could be false but I saw a documentary on it. Here's an article.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/programmes/global_crime_report/crime/kidney.shtml

Sounds real to me. But I could be wrong. Caught my attention though.

[FrighT MasteR]

Organ theft itself is true, but stories like that, where they leave the victim in a tube of ice is false. Here's more info:

http://www.snopes.com/horrors/robbery/kidney.asp

[dead breed]

Organ theft itself is true, but stories like that, where they leave the victim in a tube of ice is false. Here's more info:

http://www.snopes.com/horrors/robbery/kidney.asp

Yeah the ice one seemed a little far fetched. But it's shocking how this still happens.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/904595.stm

[FrighT MasteR]

Agreed.

[choptop2]

Wouldn't see the point of keeping them alive or leaving them with profitable organs. If a one kidney is worth 10K why leave the other??

[dead breed]

Wouldn't see the point of keeping them alive or leaving them with profitable organs. If a one kidney is worth 10K why leave the other??

Well I guess if they only need 1 kidney they won't take out any other parts. What would they do with another body part they don't need....put it in the fridge? :D Also, wouldn't someone die with out 2 kidney's? :D

[hackerslacker]

Ever see the beginning of Saw? Gordon explains it..(i think)

[skybrick]

Sounds exactly like Turistas not Hostel D-Breed

Organ left doesn't really surprise me but the amount received for one is mind bloggling.

[choptop2]

Well I guess if they only need 1 kidney they won't take out any other parts. What would they do with another body part they don't need....put it in the fridge? :D Also, wouldn't someone die with out 2 kidney's? :D

The organs would be in demand they could sell them to the right people. I don't know. why are you looking at me like I do this...cause I don't. Sure I visited brazil and recently bought a new scalpel...you can't prove anything, Dead breed!

[dead breed]

The organs would be in demand they could sell them to the right people. I don't know. why are you looking at me like I do this...cause I don't. Sure I visited brazil and recently bought a new scalpel...you can't prove anything, Dead breed!

I'm taking you on the Maury show and giving you a lie detector test :D The truth will be revealed.

[choptop2]

I'm taking you on the Maury show and giving you a lie detector test :D The truth will be revealed.

You'll also discover that I am your daddy. cause that's all I ever see on Maury.

[toxicangel19]

An illegal organ ring has been busted in india they said they were taking the organs from poor larborers and some were taken at gun point and some were paid for them. link below

i think there are several reasons why this is getting worse, one being because there is such a short supply of organs and such a greater demand......then you have the fact that too many people are unhealthy and by the time they die their organs aren't worth a damn then you have those people who need transplants that their condition could have been prevented (this does not include people who have illnesses that are hereditary or caused by genetic disease). also lots of people get creamated and can't stand the thought of dying without all their body parts........but that won't be me im an organ donor :)

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,325998,00.html

[dead breed]

An illegal organ ring has been busted in india they said they were taking the organs from poor larborers and some were taken at gun point and some were paid for them. link below

i think there are several reasons why this is getting worse, one being because there is such a short supply of organs and such a greater demand......then you have the fact that too many people are unhealthy and by the time they die their organs aren't worth a damn then you have those people who need transplants that their condition could have been prevented (this does not include people who have illnesses that are hereditary or caused by genetic disease). also lots of people get creamated and can't stand the thought of dying without all their body parts........but that won't be me im an organ donor :)

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,325998,00.html

The scam, centered in Gurgaon — a posh suburb of New Delhi — used luxury cars outfitted with blood-testing machines to test donors on the fly as well as sophisticated surgical equipment hidden inside a residential neighborhood.

My God, thats scary.

[deathslasher666]

Yeah, it happens, but like Fright said, you've got to have the right tools, environment, and skills to do it without killing the person. A bathroom in someone's house probably won't do well for it.

And actually, the one movie I can think of that's closest to this is Koma.

[toxicangel19]

the particular story i posted is true though because it was an actually raid that was conducted to find this out.

[Grendel]

Its said you can get up to $10,000 for a good kidney. Organ theft is a big problem in Brazil. Over 4000 cases of this happen each year.The BBC citation you give has a single individual--whose UC Berkley-based, "Organs Watch" group has been around for almost a decade--making a claim of (only) "over a dozen well-documented cases from Turkey, to India, to Brazil, to Argentina."

In light of that, the "4,000 from Brazil" figure seems more than a little outlandish.
An illegal organ ring has been busted in india they said they were taking the organs from poor larborers and some were taken at gun point and some were paid for them.The story in question can only cite a single worker with the "armed assailant" story. Beyond that "accounts varied." It sounds like illegal sale and trafficking is the real issue, here, not sensational stories of organ thieves.

This one needs to be taken with more than a grain of salt.

[toxicangel19]

The BBC citation you give has a single individual--whose UC Berkley-based, "Organs Watch" group has been around for almost a decade--making a claim of (only) "over a dozen well-documented cases from Turkey, to India, to Brazil, to Argentina."

In light of that, the "4,000 from Brazil" figure seems more than a little outlandish.
The story in question can only cite a single worker with the "armed assailant" story. Beyond that "accounts varied." It sounds like illegal sale and trafficking is the real issue, here, not sensational stories of organ thieves.

This one needs to be taken with more than a grain of salt.


but there are also those that maybe unaccounted for because those people are either dead or too scared to talk about it...those aren't rich countries ya know? trafficking has always been a serious issue whether its with drugs, human beings, or parts of us human beings.

[Knight]

Organ theft is a huge problem. Just like Satanic human sacrifice. There's not much evidence to support these things because people are just so afraid to come forward and are also brainwashed by subliminal messages embedded in heavy metal music and Neil Diamond recordings to keep from talking. These are huge epidemics that need to be stopped. Only YOU have the power to protect our children.

P.S. Don't listen to Grendel. I suspect he's one of THEM.

[Grendel]

but there are also those that maybe unaccounted for because those people are either dead or too scared to talk about it...those aren't rich countries ya know?Possible, but your last point ("these aren't rich countries") is what tends to make it less so.

With the medical necessities involved, potential witnesses and accomplices multiply. Given just how poor the populations that we're talking about are, the relative pittance that it would require to purchase a donor's organ from him--as seems to be the prevailing and more plausible narrative--far outweighs the risks present in theft.

[Grendel]

P.S Don't listen to Grendel. I suspect he's one of THEM.What'd you have to go and do that for? Now you've forced my hand.

Anyone know where's a good place to stock up on ice, rubber gloves, and x-acto knives in Vegas?

[toxicangel19]

Possible, but your last point ("these aren't rich countries") is what tends to make it less so.

With the medical necessities involved, potential witnesses and accomplices multiply. Given just how poor the populations that we're talking about are, the relative pittance that it would require to purchase a donor's organ from him--as seems to be the prevailing and more plausible narrative--far outweighs the risks present in theft.


true that it makes it less because of the $ involved, however who said they were always paying to get those organs???? they maybe just killing people and taking them!!!! :oogle:

[Grendel]

true that it makes it less because of the $ involved, however who said they were always paying to get those organs???? they maybe just killing people and taking them!!!! :oogle:Well, other than the fact that the articles already referenced overwhelmingly emphasize "sale" over some cabal of organ hijackers, the same rule applies: with what the patients with the money are paying, the cost/benefit analysis simply doesn't favor killing over how comparably little money it takes to make the proverbial "offer they can't refuse."

[Grendel]

Looks like the NYT (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/30/world/asia/30kidney.html?hp) has picked up the story as well. It seems more details are filtering out and some legitimate "thefts" may have been perpetrated by this particular ring.
Kidney Thefts Shock India

By AMELIA GENTLEMAN
Published: January 30, 2008

GURGAON, India — As the anesthetic wore off, Naseem Mohammed recalled, he felt an acute pain in his lower left abdomen. Fighting drowsiness, he fumbled beneath the unfamiliar folds of a green medical gown and traced his fingers over a bandage attached with surgical tape. An armed guard by the door told him that his kidney had been removed.

Mr. Mohammed was the last of about 500 Indians whose kidneys were removed by a team of doctors running an illegal transplant operation, supplying kidneys to rich Indians and foreigners, police officials say. A few hours after his surgery last Thursday, the police raided the clinic and moved him to a government hospital.

Many of the donors were day laborers, like Mr. Mohammed, picked up from the streets with the offer of work, driven to a well-equipped private clinic, and duped or forced at gunpoint to undergo surgery. Others were bicycle rickshaw drivers and impoverished farmers who were persuaded to sell their organs, which is illegal in India.

Although several kidney rings have been exposed in India in recent years, the police believe the scale of this one was unprecedented. Four doctors, 5 nurses, 20 paramedics, 3 private hospitals, 10 pathology clinics and 5 diagnostic centers were involved, said the police officer in charge of the investigation, Mohinder Lal.

“We suspect around 400 or 500 kidney transplants were done by these doctors over the last nine years,” said Mr. Lal, who is the Gurgaon police commissioner.

The case has enthralled India’s newspaper-reading public. Editorial writers have been particularly incensed by the failure of the police to capture the main doctor, who has many names but was known most recently as Amit Kumar.

He was arrested in 1994 for running a kidney-transplant racket in Mumbai, but jumped bail, changed his name and set up work again from a series of clinics hidden inside residential apartments in the prosperous city of Gurgaon, just outside Delhi.

One of his clinics was raided by the police in 2000, but somehow he was allowed to continue working. Officials neglected to investigate further even when at least one television investigation exposed his work.

The Times of India on Tuesday called on the government to investigate “the nexus between the organ traders and the police.”

Investigators were alerted to the existence of the ring on Thursday by a donor who said the operation had ruined his health.

Apparently tipped off before the raid took place, Dr. Kumar escaped arrest. Only one of the four main doctors implicated has been detained.

The officials suspect that several private hospitals in Delhi and its suburbs were quietly complicit in Dr. Kumar’s work and treated patients recovering from kidney transplants.

“Due to its scale, we believe more members of the Delhi medical fraternity must have been aware of what was going on,” Mr. Lal told reporters on Monday.

He said a team of criminals he called kidney scouts usually roamed the labor markets Delhi and cities in Uttar Pradesh, India’s poorest state, searching for potential donors. Some prospects were asked outright if they wanted to sell a kidney and were offered $1,000 to $2,500.

A car equipped with testing equipment was often on hand so that potential donors could be checked immediately to see whether their kidneys matched the needs of prospective patients.

Letters and e-mails from 48 foreigners inquiring about transplants were discovered in Dr. Kumar’s office, Mr. Lal said. Five foreigners — three from Greece and two Indian-born American citizens — were found in one of the clinics during the raids. The police suspected that they may have been about to receive kidney transplants, Mr. Lal said, but they were later allowed to return home because there was insufficient evidence to detain them.

Mr. Mohammed, 25, said in an interview on Monday that he had no idea that it was possible to sell a kidney. He had been picking up odd jobs in Delhi for the past two years and sending money to his family in Gujarat. Two weeks ago, he said, he was approached by a bearded man as he waited at the early-morning labor market by the Old Delhi train station. The man offered him an unusually generous deal: one and a half months’ work painting, for a little less than $4 a day, with free food and lodging.

He said he was driven four or five hours away, to a secluded bungalow surrounded by trees, where he was placed in a room with four other young men, under the watch of two armed guards.

“When I asked why I had been locked inside, the guards slapped me and said they would shoot me if I asked any more questions,” Mr. Mohammed recalled, lying in his hospital bed, wrapped in an orange blanket, clenching his teeth and shutting his eyes in pain. He said the men were given food to cook for themselves and periodically nurses would come to take blood samples.

One by one, he said, they were taken away for surgery.

“They told us not to speak to each other or we would pay with our lives,” he said. “I was the last one to be taken.”

Two beds away in the drafty isolation ward at the Gurgaon Civic hospital, Shakeel Ahmed, 28, a laborer from Uttar Pradesh, said he, too, had been promised well-paid work. After several days of confinement with Mr. Mohammed, he said, a blood sample was taken and a few hours later, against his will, he received an injection that caused him to lose consciousness.

“I had no idea about kidney transplants, but when they made me lie down on the stretcher, I was terrified,” he said. “I knew that these people meant to do evil to me. When I woke up a doctor said my kidney had been removed. He said I would be shot if I ever told anyone what happened.”

The men said there were no postoperative medical checks and no discussion of money or other compensation.

Three police officers now stood guarding the ward.

“These are the main witnesses to the crime,” said Badlu Ram, a police inspector. “The operation was so well-organized that we believe there may be a threat to their lives.”

Mr. Ahmed’s father, Abdullah Ahmed, sat on the edge of his son’s bed, weeping. He said that his son’s damaged health would keep him from working, leaving the family destitute.

“I don’t know what we will do,” he said. “The men who did this should be hanged.”Given the exposure and the law enforcement invovlement seen here, this might be the exception that proves the rule about why illegal purchase from donors is seen more than theft.