HYDERABAD: The Task Force police on Monday busted an international kidney racket and arrested four persons including a doctor for luring donors by offering huge amounts for kidney transplants for needy patients at hospitals in Sri Lanka and Iran.
Police seized passports, medical reports, computers, laptops, mobile phones etc. from their possession.
The arrested persons include Dr Hirdesh Saxena, 60, resident of Shirdi in Maharastra and city residents K Raghavender, 34, businessman, A Ashok, 22, student and Sanjay Kumar Jain, 32, a passport agent.
Stating that the case was transferred to Central Crime Station (CCS) for further investigation, additional commissioner of police Anjani Kumar said that Hirdesh Saxena was the kingpin of the racket, maintaining a network of agents, sub-agents and donors.
Raghavender was an agent of Saxena and earned commission of `3 lakh per donor.
Ashok was the sub-agent and worked for Raghavender and helped in finding the donors for a commission of `50,000, while Sanjay Kumar Jain arranged passports for them by charging `30,000 to 40,000.
“They lured youngsters through social media and sub agents and convinced them to donate kidneys for `5 lakh. The donors who had a passport were paid `5 lakh, while those who did not have one were paid `3 lakh,” said the police officer. Dr Saxena also was in cahoots with Ram Kumar of Chennai, providing him donors for `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.
They have selected three Hospitals Western Hospital, Lanka Hospital, Navaloka Hospital at Colombo and Moheb Hospital at Tehran in Iran for performing the operations.
“Dr Saxena scouted for patients at dialysis centres and also through social media. He was in this trade for the last one year. The agents do not allow recipients and donors to speak with each other or to exchange their particulars. The racket operated in Karnataka, Chennai, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Kerala, Maharashtra,” Anjani Kumar said.