LUCKNOW: Police on Monday arrested Rohit Tiwari, the alleged mastermind of a kidney transplant racket operating in Kanpur and several other cities, officials said.
The 24-year-old Hardoi resident, a Class XII pass-out, is accused of posing as a doctor while coordinating with hospitals, donors and recipients.
Tiwari, who carried a bounty of Rs 25,000, oversaw the entire network, from arranging doctors for surgeries to posing as a medical professional to mislead victims. During questioning, Rohit admitted to facilitating more than 30 transplant procedures.
Deputy Commissioner of Police, Kanpur, S M Qasim Abidi, said Rohit, believed to be the mastermind of the racket, played the primary coordination role. “Every member of the syndicate was in touch with him,” he said.
During interrogation, Tiwari allegedly revealed that he had been involved in the racket since 2018 and had earlier worked at a hospital in Meerut before joining the syndicate. He also disclosed details of a Meerut-based team that he used to bring to Kanpur to conduct transplant surgeries at multiple hospitals.
The team allegedly included Vaibhav Mudgal, Dr Ali and Afzal, all of whom are currently wanted in the case. Police teams are conducting raids to trace and arrest them. “During the probe, it emerged that Dr Ali used to perform the surgeries, while the others assisted him,” said the DCP.
Police said Tiwari decided the venue of procedures and the hospitals used in each case. His main associate was ambulance operator Shivam Agarwal (32), who is believed to have managed the local operations of the racket in Kanpur.
The racket was busted two weeks ago when police arrested six persons, including five doctors, Dr Surjeet Singh Ahuja (54) and his wife Dr Preeti Ahuja (50), Dr Rajesh Kumar (44), Dr Ram Prakash (40), Dr Narendra Singh (35), and Shivam Agarwal, followed by three more arrests, including two operation theatre technicians.
According to police, kidneys were procured from donors, often people in economic distress, with promises of Rs 5–6 lakh, and then sold to recipients for Rs 60 lakh to Rs 1 crore. The accused allegedly acted as middlemen, bringing potential donors to doctors.
Kanpur Police have written to the Chief Medical Officers (CMOs) of four districts, Meerut, Ghaziabad, Lucknow and Kanpur, seeking verification of hospitals that surfaced during the probe. Nearly a dozen hospitals across these districts have been identified as possibly directly or indirectly linked to the network.