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Kidney transplant racket mastermind may have fake passport: Police
Investigators said that they were in touch with immigration officials too for clues to figure out if any passport holder or international flyer’s details in their databases matches Ansari’s profile
Gurugram: The alleged mastermind behind the international organ transplant racket operating in India and Bangladesh that was busted last month, may possess a fake passport, senior officials of the Gurugram Police said.
Mohammad Murtaza Ansari, a native of Mandar village in Jharkhand’s Ranchi, is on the run after he was booked under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code and Transplantation of Human Organs Act at Gurugram Sadar police station on April 4.
Mayank Gupta, deputy commissioner of police (Gurugram East), said no passport has been issued on Ansari’s actual name and date of birth.
“However, we have recovered Ansari’s other documents in which different birth dates are mentioned,” Gupta, who is heading the special investigation team, said.
“Looking at his work profile of facilitating foreign patients in receiving treatments, it is unlikely that he will not have a passport. Documents show he has 3-4 different dates of birth raising strong suspicion of him having a fake passport,” the DCP said, adding Ansari had earlier also worked in Gurugram.
Officials said police teams from Gurugram visited Ranchi and other places multiple times in the last one month to quiz Ansari’s family, friends and relatives for information on his work, links and for his whereabouts.
Investigators said that they were in touch with immigration officials too for clues to figure out if any passport holder or international flyer’s details in their databases matches Ansari’s profile.
“Ansari had at least three bank accounts. However, not many deposits were made in them. He used to take cash from recipients for bearing all the expenses including of surgery, accommodation and his commission which was about ₹3-4 lakh per case,” Gupta said, adding they were looking for Ansari’s digital footprint to trace and arrest him as soon as possible.
Ansari’s associates in Bangladesh helped recipients prepare fake notarized documents or affidavits to show family lineages with the donor, police said.
The DCP said that such a document is one of the necessary checklists in kidney transplants but recipients and donors involved in the racket were not related.
“The arrested recipients have confessed to bringing these fake notaries from Bangladesh. These documents were submitted at Jaipur hospitals that created a base for a formal approval to carry out the organ transplants by showing that the donor and recipient were relatives,” he said.
The police had carried out a raid on a hotel in Sector-39 following a tip-off and found five Bangladeshi nationals staying there. After interrogation, it surfaced that of the five, two were kidney recipients and two others were donors who had reached Jaipur from Bangladesh for transplants. Ansari, who was handling the operation on the Indian side, shifted them to Gurugram on April 1 after an anti-corruption bureau team of the Rajasthan government cracked down on private hospitals there for alleged irregularities in issuing no-objection certificates for such transplants.
All five people were later arrested and sent to judicial custody in Gurugram.
