Want China Times, Staff Reporter 2014-08-17
Twelve defendants facing charges of selling human organs on the black market were sentenced to two years to nine years and six months in jail by the people's court in Qingshanhu, Nanchang in Jiangxi province in July.
A different organ selling crime ring on trial for selling kidneys in Hangzhou, Feb. 22, 2013. (File photo/Xinhua) |
Twelve defendants facing charges of selling human organs on the black market were sentenced to two years to nine years and six months in jail by the people's court in Qingshanhu, Nanchang in Jiangxi province in July.
According
to the investigation, the group of convicts was led by Chen Feng, who chairs a
pharmaceutical firm in Guangzhou. The firm removed kidneys from 23 living
donors between October 2011 and February 2012, thereby earning illegal gains of
1.6 million yuan (US$253,500).
Chen told
the police that he had built relations with many doctors on organ transplant
teams in many hospitals due to his pharmaceutical business.
Zhu
Yunsong, a doctor responsible for kidney transplants in Guangzhou told Chen
that kidney donations were insufficient and hoped that Chen would help find
alternative sources.
Chen said
that his participation in kidney sales started because he wanted to maintain
his relations with medical professionals and boost his pharmaceutical business.
The crimes
involved people from both Jiangxi and Guangdong. A majority of the members in
the kidney-selling ring were once donors or recipients in organ transplants and
many of them had voluntarily joined the illegal operation because their
physical condition did not allow them to work taxing jobs after having one of
their kidneys removed.
Liu
Yongdong, who needed a healthy kidney after being diagnosed with uremia, said
that when he wanted to buy a kidney on the black market, he discovered how
profitable the industry was and decided to join the organ selling ring.
He added
that he was responsible for contacting doctors and nurses and could earn 10,000
yuan (US$1,624) from a single sale.
Chinese-language
The Beijing News reported that the removed kidneys were shipped to Guangzhou
labeled as seafood.
The
long-standing shortage of living donors of organs has boosted the sale of body
parts on the black market, the paper reported.
Living
donors, who are mostly men aged in their twenties or early thirties, stay in
rented accomodation provided by the ring before finding matching recipients and
the surgeries are conducted at private hospitals.
They
usually decide to sell their kidney because they need cash urgently for various
reasons, including paying off debts or gathering funds to get married.
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