A kidney-trafficking gang has been caught transporting human kidneys under the guise of frozen seafood from Nanchang to Guangzhou. Details of the illegal trade have surfaced after 12 people were sent to prison last month.
Gang member Mo Yongqing, 32, said that airport security were usually convinced when they were told that the refrigerated kidneys were seafood. Mo was among those sentenced to between two years to nine and a half years in prison last month at Qingshanhu District People's Court in Nanchang.
Gang leader Chen Feng said that he had many connections with transplant doctors and began a search for kidney donors after Zhu Yunsong, a doctor at Guangzhou Military Area General Hospital, told him there was a shortage. Chen, who is also the chairman of the Guangzhou Mengjiadi Trading Company, made contact with a man named Zuo Handong, and claimed that the kidneys were from brain-dead patients in a Jiangxi hospital. However, the trade soon began to involve live donors. Mo was sent to bring the kidneys back and sold them to Zhu. Chen pocketed RMB10,000 from the trade and distributed the remaining RMB110,000 amongst the rest of the gang members.
Few of the gang members were experienced organ-traders or had been transplant patients but all of them took part in the trade because of the large sums of money to be made. Chen has denied that he participated for the money, claiming that he only wanted to maintain his contacts.The private Nanchang Huazhong Hospital was paid RMB35,000 to hire a room for the operations. The hospital has now been shut down.
Reports say that doctors earned RMB10,000 for each operation while illegally hired nurses from other hospitals were paid up to RMB4,000.
The gang made as much as RMB1.58 million between October 2011 and February 2012, and enlisted almost 40 potential "donors" online. 23 of them had a kidney removed. Most of the donors were in their 20s and 30s and were paid between RMB22,000 and RMB25,000.
A 21-year-old donor from Anhui named Wang Hu told The Beijing News that he saw how popular kidney donation had become online, so he contacted "Jiangxi Li" on QQ and made his way to Nanchang in October 2011. After finding a suitable match, he was blindfolded and taken to a hospital to have a kidney removed. Wang was paid RMB25,000 for his kidney. He said that he was motivated to sell his kidney because he struggled to find a job and wanted to show his father he could live on his own. Another donor said he sold a kidney to pay gambling debts.
Data shows that there are about 30 million people in China every year waiting for an organ transplant, but only an estimated 10,000 cases of organ transplantation are successful, leaving many patients with no choice but to reach out to illegal organ dealers.
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