Prosecution of inter-provincial kidney buying and selling subjects, arrest of 4 people

On February 6, the Investigation Police Agency under the Ministry of Public Security announced that it had dismantled an inter-provincial kidney buying and selling ring and arrested four suspects.

The police have initiated a case and prosecuted the defendants including: Tu Cong Nguyen (residing in Le Thuy district, Quang Binh province - leader of the kidney buying and selling ring); Dang Hoang Bich An (residing in Cai Lay district, Tien Giang province); Nguyen Truong Son (residing in Ba Vi district, Hanoi); Nguyen Ngoc Diem (residing in Go Vap district, Ho Chi Minh City) for the crime of "Buying and selling human body parts" according to Article 154 of the Penal Code.

On January 26, the Criminal Police Department presided over and coordinated with the police of various units and localities to summon and urgently search the subjects for kidney buying and selling, including Tu Cong Nguyen, Dang Hoang Bich An, Nguyen Truong Son and Nguyen Ngoc Diem.

Based on the documents of the investigation and the statements of the subjects, the Investigation Police Agency under the Ministry of Public Security determined that the subjects in this criminal ring were all people who had sold their kidneys, so they knew the procedures and the need to find kidney sellers and buyers in hospitals. The subjects had very sophisticated methods of operation, using social networks to communicate and exchange information, concealing their crimes, and had a wide area of ​​operation, involving many localities.

Accordingly, the subject Tu Cong Nguyen played the role of mastermind, leader, in charge of finding kidney sellers and buyers, then discussed and assigned other subjects to participate in the implementation.

Dang Hoang Bich An (living as husband and wife with Nguyen) was assigned to take the kidney seller to do the testing procedures and receive illegal profits from the patient's family. The two subjects, along with Son and Diem, took the seller to do the blood type and HLA index tests.

After the transplants were successful, An received money from the patient's family and transferred the money to the subjects as previously agreed. In addition, Nguyen often went online to find people who wanted to sell their kidneys by posting information "Needing kidney donors with blood types A, B, O; after surgery, kidney donation will be compensated from 380 million VND to 450 million VND" on the page "Humanitarian Kidney Donation Group."

After finding a kidney seller, Nguyen asked them to come to Hanoi, assigned them to do blood and HLA tests at the hospital, and guided them through the legal procedures to legalize the kidney purchase and sale. When the seller's test results were available, Nguyen continued to post information about the blood type and HLA index on Facebook to find a kidney buyer; directly negotiated to pay for a kidney with a price ranging from 700 million to nearly 1 billion VND.

Once a buyer was found, Nguyen took the buyer and seller to the hospital to undergo cross-sampling. If the HLA index results matched for each pair, the kidney transplant surgery was performed at the hospital. With the above method, the subjects successfully carried out 4 kidney buying and selling brokerage transactions, earning a profit of 200-320 million VND/transaction.

Based on the collected documents and evidence, the Investigation Police Agency under the Ministry of Public Security issued an emergency detention order, an emergency search order, a temporary detention decision, and an emergency arrest order for Nguyen, An, Son, and Diem. The emergency arrest order was approved by the Supreme People's Procuracy.

The Investigation Police Agency under the Ministry of Public Security is continuing to investigate, expand the case, and clarify other related subjects./.