15 arrested as Delhi Police busts kidney transplant racket

Delhi Police arrested 15 people in a kidney transplant racket across 11 hospitals in 5 states, exposing illegal transplants targeting poor patients.

The Delhi Police has busted a kidney transplant racket and arrested 15 people in a massive crackdown across 11 private hospitals in five states across the country, senior police officers aware of the case said on Friday, adding that the gang carried out at least 34 illegal kidney transplants.

The arrests have exposed a precarious set of procedures carried out by transplant coordinators at high-end hospitals, who “learnt” about the medical methodology and operated upon patients, often from poor backgrounds, who were their primary targets, officers from the Delhi Police’s crime branch said. (Representational image)

The arrests have exposed a precarious set of procedures carried out by transplant coordinators at high-end hospitals, who “learnt” about the medical methodology and operated upon patients, often from poor backgrounds, who were their primary targets, officers from the Delhi Police’s crime branch said. The gang has been active for three years and has dealt with 68 patients over time.

Deputy commissioner of police (crime branch) Amit Goel identified the prime accused as Sandeep Arya. He has worked as a transplant coordinator at various hospitals in Faridabad, Delhi, Gurugram, Indore and Vadodara and was caught at a five-star hotel in Goa on June 28. A Mercedes car was also seized from his possession. Police did not share the names of the hospitals as notices will be sent for further inquiry about their roles. The racket was active in Delhi-NCR, Punjab, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat, said police.

The development came after the Delhi Police arrested seven people in June and July, including a 55-year-old doctor who worked as a consultant at Indraprastha Apollo Hospital for running a kidney racket.

The present matter came to light when the wife of a potential recipient approached the police in June, alleging she was cheated by some people. “The woman alleged that the accused took ₹35 lakh from her, assuring her a kidney transplant for her husband. But they delayed the process and her husband died. The accused never returned her money. She also gave names and details of three of the accused people,” said an officer, requesting anonymity.

A team led by inspector Satendra Mohan and ACP Ramesh Lamba identified all the accused involved in the matter in the last week of June. On June 26, police arrested a man named Vijay Kashyap from Noida and seized forged documents, stamps and files of donors and patients. Police said Kashyap had initially contacted Arya to donate his own kidney and get money. Later, he joined the gang and was earning ₹50,000 for each transplant. Police said he was tasked to “groom” the donors and recipients as each other’s family members. It is mandatory that donors and recipients are blood relatives to be eligible for a kidney transplant.

On June 28, police arrested Arya and another accused, Devender Jha, from the five-star hotel in Goa. Police said Jha is Arya’s brother-in-law and provided his bank account details to the gang. “He would get ₹50,000 in each case. Jha’s bank records show he received ₹7 lakh from the complainant whose husband died,” the officer cited above added.

Lured poor, vulnerable patients

Sharing details about modus operandi, DCP Goel said three of the accused — Arya, Puneet Kumar, and Cheeka Prashanth – worked at reputed hospitals in different cities as transplant coordinators.

“They got trained about the procedures for kidney transplant and identified vulnerable patients who urgently needed treatment. These patients were usually from Delhi, Faridabad, Mohali, Panchkula, Agra, Indore and Gujarat. The other accused would arrange donors from Facebook and Telegram. They targeted poor individuals and offered them ₹5 lakh for a kidney. Another set of accused forged documents of both patients and donors to show them as relatives,” said Goel.

One of the accused, Rohit Khanna, who was arrested last week, was found using 26 email accounts. Police said he sourced donors on social media and was a member of at least 112 kidney treatment groups online. He was the main “supplier”.

In a few cases, police said the accused showed that the donors and recipients belonged to different states to get transplants done in different hospitals. A second officer, who also requested anonymity, said the accused forged addresses and father’s name on the marksheets of classes 10 and 12 to establish a relationship between the donor and the recipient.

The accused conducted medical tests based on these forged documents and sent them to the transplant authorisation committee at different hospitals. “We also found five recipients and two donors. Legal action is being taken against them,” the second officer said.

DCP Goel said Arya worked with multiple hospitals as a transplant coordinator and took ₹35- ₹40 lakh for each transplant from the patient and took ₹7-8 lakh as his commission. He is also involved in a 2018 cheating case in Delhi.

Goel said Arya also lured a few of the donors to join the gang. Prashanth was a donor and was even trained by Arya to get a job as a transplant coordinator. “Arya got him enrolled at an institute in Indore. Prashanth was the one who found a donor for the complainant’s husband but the man died before the transplant... One of the donors, Hanif Shaikh, a tailor from Mumbai, has been arrested for donating a kidney and further providing more donors to the gang,” Goel added.