Kidney-Theft Bust Has India Buzzing

Ring may have done 500 illegal transplants; key suspect still loose
By Sam Gale Rosen,  Newser Staff
Posted Jan 30, 2008 4:31 PM CST

Police exposure of a criminal ring that has illegally taken hundreds of kidneys over the past nine years has created scandal in India, reports the New York Times. Victims were mostly day laborers lured by offers of work or simply kidnapped at gunpoint. They were forcibly operated on, and their organs were sold to rich Indians and foreigners.

Police say the scale of the operation was unprecedented, the Times reports, with multiple hospitals in the Delhi area thought to be involved. The ring's mastermind, most recently known as Amit Kumar, is still at large. The Times of India calls the police's failure to capture him the sign of a possible "nexus between the organ traders and the police.” (More organ trafficking stories.)

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