Indian Police bust kidney racket, transplants to take place at Lankan and Iranian hospitals

Indian police in Hyderabad  on Monday busted an international kidney racket and arrested four persons including a doctor for luring donors by offering huge amounts for kidney transplants for needy patients at hospitals in Sri Lanka and Iran, the New Indian Express reported.

Indian Police seized passports, medical reports, computers, laptops, mobile  phones etc. from their possession.

The arrested persons include Dr Hirdesh Saxena, 60, resident of Shirdi in Maharastra and city residents K Raghavender, 34, businessman, A Ashok, 22, student and Sanjay Kumar Jain, 32, a passport agent.

Additional commissioner of police Anjani Kumar said that Hirdesh Saxena was the kingpin of the racket, maintaining a network of agents, sub-agents and donors, the report said.

Raghavender was an agent of Saxena and earned commission of `3 lakh per donor.

Ashok was the sub-agent and worked for Raghavender and helped in finding the donors for a commission of `50,000, while Sanjay Kumar Jain arranged passports for them by charging `30,000 to 40,000.

“They lured youngsters through social media and sub agents and convinced them to donate kidneys for `5 lakh. The donors who had a passport were paid `5 lakh, while those who did not have one were paid `3 lakh,” the police officer was quoted as saying. Dr Saxena also was in cahoots with Ram Kumar of Chennai, providing him donors for `3 lakh.

Though both recipients and donors would be Indian nationals, the transplant was performed in either Iran or Sri Lanka by keeping the government regulators there in the dark.

Donors and recipients would be taken there on tourist visa.

They have selected three Hospitals Western Hospital, Lanka Hospital, Nawaloka Hospital at Colombo and Moheb Hospital at Tehran in Iran for performing the operations.