NEW DELHI: The Crime Branch of the Delhi Police busted an interstate kidney transplant racket and arrested 15 members of the syndicate.
The arrested include the kingpin, transplant co-ordinator of hospitals, patients and even donors.
The cops have so far identified five patients, who got kidney transplants done along with two donors. All in all, 34 cases of illegal kidney transplants have come to the fore during the investigation.
Sharing details, DCP (Crime-Branch) Amit Goel said that the Crime Branch received secret information regarding a well-organized racket that is involved in illegal kidney transplants of Indian citizens.
During the information development process and identification of victims of the syndicate, the Crime Branch received a complaint against a person named Sandeep and Vijay Kumar Kashyap alias Sumit that they had cheated her husband with Rs 35,00,000 on the pretext of a kidney transplant.
"On June 26, related characters were identified with the help of technical surveillance and multiple raids were conducted by various teams and accused Sumit alias Vijay Kashyap was arrested from Noida and a lot of fabricated papers, stamp seals and patient/donor files were recovered from his possession," the DCP said in a press conference.
Accordingly, a case in relevant sections was registered and two days later another accused Sandeep Arya and Devender, both residents of Uttrakhand were arrested from a 5-star hotel in Goa.
During interrogation, the cops found out that the accused first used to take a job in reputed hospitals as a transplant co-coordinator and then get trained or learn the process adopted by the concerned hospital for Kidney transplants.
"Thereafter, they used to identify the patients suffering from kidney ailments and taking treatment from different hospitals in Delhi, Faridabad, Mohali, Panchkula, Agra, Indore and Gujarat," the officer said
The accused used to then contact donors from social media and took benefit of their poor financial background, ultimately exploiting them on the pretext of providing Rs 5 -6 lakhs to give their kidneys.
"They prepared the forged documents of patients to show them as close relatives, as this is one of the mandatory provisions. In some cases, they fabricated documents and showed the donor and patient as residents of other states to get transplantation in different state hospitals to avoid any doubt," said Goel.
Based on forged documents, they had their preliminary medical examination and arranged to pass the scrutiny of the Transplant Authorization Committee in different hospitals. So far, it has been revealed that the syndicate had succeeded in Kidney Transplant in 11 hospitals in different states.
The prime accused was identified as Sandeep Arya (the kingpin of the racket). Arya has an MBA in Public Health and worked as a Transplant Co-ordinator in various hospitals in Faridabad, Delhi, Gurugram, Indore and Vadodara.
He used to take about Rs 35-40 lakhs for each kidney transplant, which included hospital expenses paid by patients, arrangement of donor, accommodation and other legal documentation required for surgery. As per cops probe, the alleged used to save around Rs 7-8 lakhs from each kidney transplant.
The other accused were Devender Jha (brother-in-law of Arya), Vijay Kumar Kashyap alias Sumit, Puneet Kumar, Md. Hanif Shaikh (a kidney donor who was initially a tailor by profession and later joined the racket), Cheeka Prashanth (a kidney donor who later joined the racket), Tej Prakash (kidney receiver for wife and later joined the racket) and Rohit Khanna alias Narender (he used to arrange donors through social media).