Metropolis Desk-
Surya decided to sell one of her kidneys one morning in February 2020, a few months after she had an accident and was unable to work. The mother of two daughters, who was already struggling under 5 lac rupees in debt, had been the only provider since her husband lost his job.
Even though she was aware that it was illegal to sell kidneys in India, she nonetheless went online using her smartphone and put in “kidney” and “sell,” and a ton of pages appeared. She stated that she needed to sell one of her kidneys on a Facebook page that Surya found, along with her contact information.
She got a call a few days later from a man who introduced himself as Dr. Sandy. In Ghaziabad, close to the capital New Delhi, he informed her that the Gitroh Medical Center was interested in purchasing her kidney for 1 crore rupees. Surya had more than enough money to pay off all of her bills and cover her family’s necessities for years.
She only needed to complete a form and pay 8,000 rupees for a donor card to get entry into the auction process.
Surya discovered the phone number for the MOHAN Foundation (Multi Organ Harvesting Aid Network), a nonprofit that encourages organ donation and gives donor cards to people who want to donate their organs after they pass away, just before making a purchase.
The foundation’s helpline representative informed her that there was no fee for the donor card. I believe you were almost a victim of fraud.
When Dr. Sunil Shroff, a transplant surgeon trained in Britain, returned to India and discovered lengthy waiting lists for kidney transplants, he established MOHAN.
Every year, 200,000 Indians develop end-stage renal failure and almost a million are diagnosed with chronic kidney disease, which results in an alarming number of fatalities.
According to Dr. Shroff, there were 20 organ donations each year in Tamil Nadu during the early years of MOHAN. The state program has expanded to include states like Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, and Gujarat. Currently, there are 140 to 180 a year.
Scams, however, also spread quickly, and the MOHAN Foundation quickly discovered that phony intermediaries were using its name to lure in unsuspecting victims. Calls like Surya’s are so often that Dr. Shroff and his staff started keeping track of them to keep an eye on the issue.
In an April 2020 contact that was recorded, a man asked for Dr. Aryan Karan and said that they had an agreement for the sale of his kidney. It was evident that the victim had been duped once the MOHAN operator informed him that Dr. Karan did not exist.
“Only after paying the registration fee of 7,894 rupees can, we move further. In a WhatsApp chat that the MOHAN Foundation was able to collect, the fictitious Dr. Karan states, “I don’t have the time to squander.
“How long can I live with one kidney, sir, if I sell my other one?” inquiries the victim.
The con artist retorted, “Lol, you can live as long as life offers you.”
It’s challenging to organize 7,894 people at this moment because I lack the funds to provide meals for my children.
“If you’re serious, do it. I can’t help you with this.”
Another man contacted and claimed that he had paid the fictitious National Kidney Foundation 9,999 rupees for a “living donor card” and that after obtaining the false card, he had lost contact with them.
Dr. Shroff has seen that there are still gaps to be filled after keeping track of the scams.
He claims that “this program has combined extreme goodness with extreme wickedness.” “The most noble deed is when someone gives unknowingly to someone else; the worst deed is when someone takes advantage of people.”
Surya was first dubious when the MOHAN Foundation suggested she make a complaint because she thought the police may get her into trouble. However, the charity made it possible for her by assisting with the complaint and numerous others made to the Chennai police.
Surya adds, “I choose to report this tale to stop those from making this error. Only by becoming public will we be able to combat this.
The majority of transplants in India are between “near relatives” (parents, siblings, spouses), “non-near relatives,” such as acquaintances or distant relatives with established relationships of affection, and “living donors” who are “near relatives” or “non-near”. Despite the system’s appearance of regulation, there is a substantial chance of fraud and the trafficking of human organs.
Facebook, which is widely used and respected in India, has developed into a market where people can buy and sell a variety of goods, including organs, during the past ten years. Or at least it makes that promise as desperate sellers and customers search online for hope while con artists go berserk trying to profit from their agony.
Before social media and widely available, affordable internet access, illegal kidney sales, and purchases were conducted on the streets via word of mouth.
A few years after the tsunami of 2004 devastated areas of the subcontinent, including Surya’s home state of Tamil Nadu, and killed more than 8,000 people, regulations governing organ transplantation were put in place. Many of the less fortunate survivors decided to sell their organs to raise much-needed funds because they had lost their jobs and houses. The kidney market grew to such an extent that one of the districts, Villivakkam, earned the moniker “Kidneyvakkam”.
Following the passage of the Transplantation of Human Organs and Tissues Act in 1994, Tamil Nadu was one of the first states to start cadaver transplants. Through the Cadaver Transplant Program (CTP), which was later renamed the Transplant Authority of Tamil Nadu (TRANSTAN) and currently establishes the standard operating procedures, including for living donations, it opened the ground for the national promotion of cadaver organ donation in 2008.
While the system has made the actual sale of kidneys more challenging, con artists who want to sell people nothing more than a fake donor card continue to prosper as cheap and easy access to the internet has made platforms like Facebook an easy place to market anything. Nearly half of India’s 1.4 billion population has online access.
That became apparent once more in 2020 when the COVID-19 epidemic occurred. Many people turned to trying to sell their organs as their wages decreased and they lost their jobs. Numerous people, including Surya, started following new Facebook groups and pages. There, phony intermediaries posing as doctors and reputable hospitals offered to buy their organs from willing buyers in exchange for a one-time payment, which served as either a “donor card” or a “registration fee.”
It’s uncertain whether or not these sales truly happen. However, it is known that some individuals lost money as a result, increasing their debt.
One Facebook page has the name “Do you want to sell your kidney for money?” and makes no effort to conceal its content. Gleneagles Global Hospital in Chennai needs kidneys, and Dr. John Simpson is willing to buy yours for 6 crore Indian rupees, according to the page’s text below the smiling surgeon’s profile picture.
However, the physician in the image is Dr. Paul Nassif, an American plastic surgeon best known for co-hosting the E! reality series Botched and unrelated to Gleneagles. In addition, there is no connection whatsoever between the Gleneagles Global Hospital and the Facebook page that was looking for kidney sellers. It was informed by Dr. Nassif’s office that they were ignorant of the situation and will be asking Facebook to take down the page.
A Facebook page called “Global Kidney Company” shares pictures of surgeons at work and asks, “Anyone ready?” it claims to have clinics on practically every continent.
The list of responses is below. One writes, “Yes, I need money; how much are you offering?”
Please take a risk and message us confidentially, asking Global Kidney Company for a certificate of achievement for donors.
Along with these pages, there are public groups as well. The number of members in the “Kidney & organ donors let’s donate one bring life to others” group has increased to 10,229 now. Although many more come from Africa, Asia, and the Middle East, India is the country where most users register.
A man with his avatar and his profile photo add, “I’m 35 years old from the Philippines selling my kidney.”
A man from Lake Forest, California, in the United States answers, “I’m A- are you willing to come to the U.S.?
The general manager of operations at Apollo Hospitals in Chennai, one of the con artists’ hospitals, told Al Jazeera that they were unaware that their name was being used to entice customers to pay fictitious fees.
Even the US-based National Kidney Foundation (NKF), a nonprofit health organization, was unaware that con artists were utilizing its name. A fake version of the organization established a “rescue team” and reacts to emails with a price list for bogus donor and transplant cards. It claims to have an office in Mumbai, India.
The NKF is “horrified by the cruelty of trying to take advantage of people who may be desperately in need,” said Paul McGee, vice president of communications for the organization, in an interview with Al Jazeera. McGee said that the foundation would be adding information in several languages explaining that they do not sell any cards on their official website.
The page’s administrator is Tamil Nadu native Karthik, 35, who is a kidney donor. Although his profile is now hidden, it once claimed that he had a degree in literature and frequently shared images of religion.
After experiencing financial difficulties in 2017, Karthik claimed he wanted to sell his kidney but instead paid money to con artists he contacted on Facebook. Following that encounter, he created a Facebook public group where he claims that he is in contact with medical professionals working in hospitals. Before he locked his page, some of the messages Al Jazeera viewed asked for kidney donors. At least one person responded, saying he was willing to donate his kidney and to “kindly share with me what you are offering in Indian rupees” along with his phone number.
Karthik claims that despite knowing that kidneys cannot be purchased but must only be donated, he has successfully matched numerous patients for transplants in exchange for a commission.
Facebook’s operator, Meta Platforms, claims to have comprehensive policies against human exploitation, including scams and the trafficking of human organs.
“We realize that our work will never be flawless. A spokeswoman told Al Jazeera in an email that “no amount of investment and technology can ever keep 100% of fraud off of platforms like ours, especially as fraudsters grow cleverer. This is similar to how no police department can ever prevent all crime before it happens. Some of the Al Jazeera-reported pages, such as the “Kidney sellers” page, were taken down by Meta.
While some, like the Indian Kidney Transplant Patient Group and Kidney & Organ Donors Let’s Donate One Bring Life to Others, have been active since 2014, others, like the “I want to sell my kidney” and “Do you want to sell your kidney for money” public groups and sites are still up.
Source- Al Jazeera
