kidney trade busted; doctor, 3 others arrested

With the arrest of four persons including a doctor, Hyderabad police on Monday claimed to have busted a racket of kidney transplants for Indian patients at hospitals in Sri Lanka or Iran.

The officers of Commissioner's Task Force (West Zone) on Monday arrested Dr Hirdesh Saxena alias Kumar (60), a resident of Shirdi in Maharashtra, and city-residents K Raghavender, a businessman; A Ashok, a student; and Sanjay Kumar Jain, a passport agent. Additional police commissioner Anjani Kumar said Dr Saxena was the kingpin of the racket. The recipients of transplant had to shell out Rs 30 lakh, while Saxena made a profit of Rs 8 lakh per transplant, he added.

Raghavender alias Dr Sanjay Kapoor, who acted as Saxena's agent, earned a commission of Rs 3 lakh per donor. Ashok worked for Raghavender and helped find the donors for a commission of Rs 50,000, while Jain arranged passports by charging Rs 30,000 to Rs 40,000. They lured youngsters through social media and sub-agents and persuaded them to donate kidney for money. The donors who had a passport were paid Rs 5 lakh, while those who did not have one were paid Rs 3 lakh, said the officer. Dr Saxena also was in cahoots with Ram Kumar of Chennai, providing him donors for Rs 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. Dr Saxena scouted for patients at dialysis centres and also through social media. He was in this trade for the last one year. The racket operated in Karnataka, Chennai, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Kerala, Maharashtra, ACP Kumar said. A case under the Andhra Pradesh Transplantation of Human Organs Act-1995 and IPC has been registered