Police in eastern Pakistan have smashed an illegal organ harvesting ring, arresting eight people for surgically removing kidneys from hundreds of patients for wealthy people needing a transplant, authorities said Monday.

The alleged gang leader, identified as “Dr Fawad,” is 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, said Mohsin Naqvi, the chief minister of Pakistan’s Punjab province.

Fawad was allegedly assisted in the operations by an unnamed car mechanic who administered the anesthesia, Naqvi said.

The chief minister said the gang lured patients from hospitals and performed the operations privately in the region of Taxila, the city of Lahore and in Pakistan-administered Kashmir.

  • SamsonSeinfelder@feddit.de
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    1 year ago

    This is such an underreported topic. The wealthy are able to get organs in a very short time and do not ask where they come from. They are getting told that there are ways to get up the donor list by giving money, while the reality is that people getting organ harvested too bypass the donor list. I’m China a organ transplant can be done in 3 weeks while in the west it can take 3-6 month to find a donor. Meanwhile china does not have a voluntarily good-will donor system and the acceptance in the society to freely donate organs after the death is much lower (near zero) than in the west, yet they still seem to have a endless supply of quickly available organs at will for anyone that can afford it. This is extremely suspicious and already raised alarms in the UN:

    https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2021/06/china-un-human-rights-experts-alarmed-organ-harvesting-allegations

  • lntl@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    steal from the poor, give to the rich

    or something like that

  • AutoTL;DR@lemmings.worldB
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    1 year ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:


    The alleged gang leader, identified as “Dr Fawad,” is 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, said Mohsin Naqvi, the chief minister of Pakistan’s Punjab province.

    Fawad was allegedly assisted in the operations by an unnamed car mechanic who administered the anesthesia, Naqvi said.

    The chief minister said the gang lured patients from hospitals and performed the operations privately in the region of Taxila, the city of Lahore and in Pakistan-administered Kashmir.

    Police spent almost two months investigating the case after a man came forward saying he was convinced by one of the alleged gang members to get medical treatment done privately.

    Naqvi said he is working with the Inspector General of Police of Punjab to strengthen the country’s cyber laws so adverts for such illegal kidney transplants are banned online.

    But the practice has continued and local media have reported that illegal kidney transplants have made a comeback in recent years.


    The original article contains 431 words, the summary contains 170 words. Saved 61%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!

  • Jimmycakes@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    This is pretty common all over Asia. Sometimes they are up front and offer cash but it’s fractions of what they are making on the sale like $500 for the kidney.

  • maporita@unilem.org
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    1 year ago

    Cue the outrage. Meanwhile no-one questions why people feel compelled to sell their own organs in order to survive. This is just a logical and expected outcome of a system where some give their own blood so that others can live better.

    • Inti@discuss.tchncs.de
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      1 year ago

      I see and support your point, but what makes this even more unethical is, that the “donors” did not even knew their kidney was removed (as stated in the linked article) …

    • TheMadnessKing@lemdro.id
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      1 year ago

      If the govt is spending money festering Terrorism, then what can the people do. I read some article which stated that Pakistan has been under military control on multiple ocassion in recent times leading to economic instability. Then there was COVID too.