The Hyderabad police in India have arrested a man who tricked poor people into selling their kidneys for a small sum and then hawking them for a huge premium to people requiring dialysis. Investigation of this racket has led the police to four hospitals in Sri Lanka and Turkey.
The Banjara Hills police named the man as Dogiparthi Shanmukha Pavan Srinivas, 25, once upon a time an aircraft maintenance engineer.
He came to police notice when a woman B. Bharathi lodged a written complaint at the Banjara Hills police station stating that her husband Nagaraj was cheated out of Rs 34 lakh by this man.
Bharathi said she and her husband got acquainted with Srinivas at the dialysis treatment facility of a private hospital. In due course, Srinivas said he could arrange a kidney donor through his sources in Sri Lanka or Turkey. He said it would cost Rs 34 lakh.
Police have found that Srinivas’s ‘donors’ were in fact poor people whom he would bait on social media and persuade them to donate their kidneys for a small sum of money.
Joint commissioner of police A.R. Srinivas said the tout is suspected of striking some 30 such deals, in nine of which he was directly involved. In one case, the recipient died during the operation.
The police investigations revealed that the accused spent the amount lavishly in Casino games in Sri Lanka and cheated the family by not arranging the donor and transplant. Investigations also found that Dogiparthi Shanmukha Pavan Srinivas was detained for two and a half years in Sri Lanka for illegal stay, and was deported to India in April 2018.
Prior to becoming a kidney tout, he used to work in aircraft maintenance. He invested his money in the stock market and lost it. The probe also revealed that after incurring a loss in the share market, the accused went to Sri Lanka in 2013 where he sold his kidney to get money and developed contacts with some doctors. In order to earn easy money, he hatched a plan to work as an agent to provide donors for needy patients. He started to lure poor people through social media and made them ready to donate their kidneys for money.
He used to get kidney transplants done through his contacts in some hospitals in Sri Lanka and Turkey. He now faces charges under Sections 406 of IPC (punishment for criminal breach of trust) and 420 IPC (cheating case). He is now in judicial custody.
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