Top Indian hospital says duped in kidney sale racket

(From AFP)

One of India’s top hospitals unwittingly removed the kidneys of organ-trafficking victims believing they were donating them to relatives, a hospital spokesman said Saturday, after police arrested five over the racket.

A criminal gang including two workers at the upscale Apollo Hospital in New Delhi allegedly lured poor people to sell their kidneys for 300,000 rupees ($4,500) before selling the organs on for huge profits, police said.

The gang used forged documents to pretend the victims were relatives of needy transplant recipients, fooling staff at the hospital, where two of the suspects worked as assistants to a senior nephrologist.

“The hospital has been a victim of a well-orchestrated operation to cheat patients and the hospital,” an Apollo spokesman said in a statement, adding that the assistants were not on the employee payroll. Read More