In the net: One of the accused sold his kidney to the gang and later joined the racket, said a senior police officer. | Photo Credit: ANI
An inter-State kidney transplant racket, led by an MBA graduate, which bought the kidneys of poor and unemployed people for ₹5-6 lakh and sold them for ₹35-40 lakh, has been busted by the Crime Branch, the police said on Friday.
A total of eight persons were arrested in a week-long operation from various parts of the country, including Delhi-NCR, said a senior officer.
The racket was active in Delhi-NCR, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, and Gujarat for the past three years, and 34 transplants carried out by the gang have been identified so far, the officer also said.
Tip-off
The Crime Branch received a tip-off about the case from a woman who accused two persons, identified as Sandeep Arya and Vijay Kumar Kashyap, of cheating her of ₹35 lakh by promising to arrange a kidney for her husband but failing to do so after accepting the money.
Mr. Arya is the alleged kingpin of the racket. He made ₹7-8 lakh from each transplant and has an MBA in public health. Mr. Kashyap is accused of selling his kidney to Mr. Arya and later joining his gang.
An FIR was registered on June 26 under IPC sections pertaining to forgery, cheating and the Transplantation of Human Organs and Tissues Act, 1994. Following this, a man named Sumit was arrested from Noida. Forged papers, stamp seals, and patient-donor files were recovered from his possession.
Two days later, the police arrested Mr. Arya and another accused, Devender, from a five-star hotel in Goa.
Subsequently, five other members of the racket — Punit Kumar, Md. Hanif Shaikh, Cheeka Prashanth, Tej Prakash, and Rohit Khanna — were also arrested from various parts of the country.
The police have also “bound down” seven patients and two kidney sellers in the case instead of arresting them as they were found to be unwell. When a person is bound down by the police, they are legally required to appear before an investigating officer or a court on being summoned and not allowed to leave the city or country without informing the authorities concerned.
Explaining the modus operandi of the gang, the officer said, “Members of the gang used to monitor social media to identify poor and unemployed people. Such people were then added to various groups on Facebook, WhatsApp, and Telegram, where advertisements to donate kidneys for ₹5-6 lakh were posted.”
Forged documents
When they found a willing donor, the officer said, the accused persons would forge documents to show that the donor and the receiver were close relatives, which is a mandatory provision for organ donation and transplant.
“According to our investigation, the syndicate carried out kidney transplants in 11 hospitals in five different States,” DCP (Crime Branch) Amit Goel said.
Upon interrogation, the accused revealed that they used to train members of their gang and place them in reputed hospitals as transplant coordinators to learn the process, said the officer.
At the hospitals, the gang members would also keep an eye out for patients in need of kidney transplants, the officer said. The gang members kept a tab on hospitals in Delhi, Faridabad, Mohali, Panchkula, Agra, Indore, and Gujarat, where they found their customers.
