Breaking up a sophisticated kidney buying and selling ring with a price of 250 - 360 million VND/kidney
Posting on Facebook to find people to buy and sell kidneys, then creating fake documents under the guise of voluntary organ donation, Tran Van Phuong ran a sophisticated kidney buying and selling ring with a purchase price of 250-320 million VND/kidney and a sale price of 340-360 million VND/kidney.
On October 15, the Criminal Police Department (Hanoi City Police) announced that it had initiated a criminal case, prosecuted and temporarily detained Tran Van Phuong (29 years old, residing in Lang Giang, Bac Giang) for the act of "Buying and selling human tissues and body parts".
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| Suspect Tran Van Phuong is the leader of the kidney trading brokerage ring - Photo: ANTĐ |
In addition to Phuong, three other suspects, including Le Thuy Linh (22 years old, Phuong's girlfriend, residing in Phu Giao, Binh Duong); Hoang Ngoc Tien (30 years old, residing in Dong Ha City, Quang Tri) and Phan Van Hung (27 years old, residing in Yen Thanh, Nghe An) related to the case are being investigated by the police to clarify their related responsibilities.
According to initial investigations, in recent times, the demand for kidney transplants at hospitals in Hanoi is very high. However, in reality, patients have no information and no source of organ donations.
Taking advantage of this situation, Tran Van Phuong used the Facebook account "Tran Bui" to post information looking for people to buy and sell kidneys and mobilized his followers to form a network to find people who needed to buy and sell kidneys. When meeting people who wanted to buy and sell kidneys, Phuong asked the kidney seller to meet the kidney buyer, creating fake documents in the form of voluntary organ donation to each other.
From January to September 2018, Phuong and his followers successfully carried out 3 kidney buying and selling transactions with purchase prices ranging from 250 - 320 million VND/kidney and selling prices ranging from 340 - 360 million VND/kidney.
In this network, Phuong assigned Hung and Tien to pick up and drop off kidney buyers and sellers for testing to see if they were compatible. For each successful kidney transplant, Phuong paid Hung and Tien 5 million VND each, and provided daily meals. Le Thuy Linh took care of meals for the group of people and those waiting to sell their kidneys at the boarding house.