Global Human Traffiking Watch: May 2017

Saturday, May 27, 2017

Kidney racket: All you need to know about the scam busted at Delhi’s Batra hospital

From changing name, getting fake accent and Aadhar card, doctoring photos in family albums, the racketeers worked to a well thought out plan to pass off the kidney seller as a family member
delhi Updated: May 27, 2017 11:28 IST

Shiv Sunny
HT Correspondent, New Delhi

Jaideep Sharma, , a management student at Pune’s Symbiosis Institute, helped bust the illegal kidney racket in Delhi. (Handout photo)

The illegal kidney donation racket busted by a Delhi police team was a well-organised one. The strength of the racketeers lay in their ability to convincingly pass off donors as close relatives of the organ recipients, investigators said.
How the quest began
*A 24-year-old MBA student at Pune’s Symbiosis Institute risked his safety and played along with illegal kidney donation agents for several weeks to expose a well-organised racket operating in Delhi, top police officials said.
* MBA student Jaideep Sharma’s quest began last September when one of his friends suddenly went missing. Since the friend had spoken about selling his kidney for a handsome price, Jaideep believed that his disappearance had something to do with a racket. He, therefore, made a conscious effort to contact the kidney racketeers and offer himself as a donor.
* The racketeers fell into the trap and offered him Rs 4 lakh for donating his kidney.
How the ‘donor’ was prepared
*Sharma contacted a reporter from News 24 channel. Prepared to conduct a sting operation, the news team informed the crime branch and sought backup.
* Sharma played along with the racketeers for several weeks, allowing the police to gather evidence. His kidney was to be ‘donated to a patient from Andhra Pradesh.
* In the meantime, the racketeers made Sharma assume the identity of an Andhra Pradesh man by arranging fake documents and working on his looks.
* The racketeers first prepared his fake aadhaar card, voter ID card, matriculation certificate and date of birth certificates, all of which showed him to be the recipient’s son.
* In all the forged documents, Sharma was given a new name, Polepeddy Snayna Podma Phanikumar, and made to repeatedly recite it so that he could confidently spell the name.

* To pass him off as the recipient’s son who could be legally allowed to donate his kidney to him, they ensured Sharma spent considerable time with the family and trained him in Telugu accent.

*Sharma’s photographs were superimposed even in the recipient’s family portraits so that any cross-checking would not reveal that he did not belong to the family. “The racketeers wanted everything to be foolproof. So, they even photo-shopped the photos of the recipient’s real son so that the donor resembled him,” said the investigator
*This was necessary as the law allows only close family members to donate kidneys to the patients. The man who was to receive Sharma’s kidney is a native of Andhra Pradesh.
The endgame
*On Thursday, just an hour before Sharma was to be operated upon, the police raided the hospital.
* The police had by then gathered total of 200 hours of video recordings.
*The police claimed to have seized several “incriminating” documents from the hospital premises. Arrests so far have been limited to the middlemen
*Police say the role of Batra Hospital’s doctors and staffers and a city-based diagnostic centre is also under the scanner.
*Investigators said this was an interstate racket that had been operating for a long time. The racketeers used to charge Rs 30-40 lakh from each kidney recipient.
Hospital denies any role
*When contacted, Batra Hospital denied any role in the racket, saying, “Batra Hospital conducts all renal transplants fairly and under strict supervision. All related and unrelated transplants are vetted by a committee. All the transplant act guidelines are followed. All documents are checked and the proceedings of the committee are

Read | Fallout of kidney scam: Live donations in Mumbai hit

Read more: http://www.hindustantimes.com/delhi-news/kidney-racket-all-you-need-to-know-about-the-scam-busted-at-delhi-s-batra-hospital/story-1izebU2bRo8hA2laW2PJVM.html

Kidney racket: Gang gave undercover donor haircut, fake DNA report to pass off as recipient’s son

Jaideep Sharma, a young student, posed as a kidney donor to set a neat trap to bust this racket in New Delhi. Sharma was given a new name and made to repeatedly recite it so that he could confidently spell it when presented before an internal committee of doctors.
delhi Updated: May 27, 2017 07:58 IST

Shiv Sunny
Hindustan Times, New Delhi

The alleged members of the kidney racket in police custody.(HT Photo)

The strength of the racketeers busted for the alleged illegal sale and purchase of kidneys in Delhi lay in their ability to convincingly pass off donors as close relatives of the organ recipients, investigators said.
They were, however, caught, when they dealt with Jaideep Sharma, a young student who posed as a donor to set a neat trap to bust this racket.
Sharma’s kidney was to be donated to a man hailing from Andhra Pradesh. The 60-year-old man has been on dialysis for the last two years. His son is diabetic, so he couldn’t donate his kidney, said police.
Once Sharma offered himself as a donor, the racketeers first prepared his fake aadhaar card, voter ID card, matriculation certificate and date of birth certificates, all of which showed him to be the recipient’s son, said Praveer Ranjan, joint commissioner of police (crime). A DNA report showing him as the recipient’s son was prepared.
In all the forged documents, Sharma was given a new name, Polepeddy Snayna Podma Phanikumar, and made to repeatedly recite it so that he could confidently spell the name when presented before an internal committee of doctors that would confirm if he really belonged to the recipient’s family.
Sharma was also made to learn the names of the recipient’s father, grandfather and great grandfather as native of Andhra Pradesh are believed to know their ancestors’ names, said Ranjan.
Read | Villager says doctors stole his kidney during surgery, Lucknow hospital denies charges
To pass him off as the recipient’s son who could be legally allowed to donate his kidney to him, they ensured Sharma spent considerable time with the family and trained him in Telugu accent.
“They gave him Rs 2,500 to get a haircut that would make him look like a member of the recipient’s family,” said a senior investigator. Whether the recipient was aware of all the illegal work involved in the donation is being investigated.
Sharma’s photographs were superimposed even in the recipient’s family portraits so that any cross-checking would not reveal that he did not belong to the family. “The racketeers wanted everything to be foolproof. So, they even photo-shopped the photos of the recipient’s real son so that the donor resembled him,” said the investigator.
Sharma played on all along, not giving a chance to the racketeers to suspect he was actually laying a trap. The Delhi Police team shadowing him too remained patient as they worked behind the scene to collect evidence.
But despite all the arrangements by the racketeers, police said it was hard to believe that they could pull off an illegal donation without help from insiders at Batra Hospital where the transplant was to happen on Thursday.
The joint CP said that despite the rule saying that the donor’s medical examination should be conducted at the hospital where the transplant is to take place, many tests were conducted at a diagnostic centre outside.
Moreover, Sharma had allegedly been given a list of questions in advance that would be posed to him by the internal committee of doctors.
“Sharma deliberately answered a few questions wrong, but was given a go-ahead by the committee,” said the joint CP.
The officer said that over the next few days, the hospital’s doctors and staffers would be questioned to know if and to what extent were any of them hand-in-glove with the racketeers. The hospital authorities refused to respond to these allegations.

Read more: http://www.hindustantimes.com/delhi-news/delhi-kidney-racket-gang-gave-undercover-donor-haircut-fake-dna-report-to-pass-off-as-recipient-s-son/story-OIkdqmnn9T2kNCNq5phlBJ.html