Israeli organ traffickers bring business to RP MANILA, Philippines – In May this year, thorough surveillance and investigation led to the arrest and indictment of six suspected members of an organ trafficking ring in Israel that included a retired military general.
The indictment included various instances of “organ harvesting” from donors in exchange for money in shekels, which was often not given in full.
The Israeli prosecutor handling the case, Bassam Kandaleft, described the case as a “shameful phenomenon” happening in their country similar to “modern [day] slavery.”
“The defendants treated the victims of trafficking as if they are immovable containers with organs, which can be removed and sold,” Kandaleft said in a copy of the Indictment e-mailed to this writer.
What has the Philippines got to do with the Israeli organ trafficking case?
As many as 12 transplants facilitated by this syndicate were performed in the country, using fraudulent documentation that were made to appear legal in order to pursue the procedure on the kidney patient and the donor, Kandaleft said.
The documents are prepared in Israel, complete with certification from the embassy that the patient and donor are related. Flights are arranged, usually via Hong Kong, then to the Philippines. And here, the traffickers know which hospital to go, which medical personnel and doctors to talk to complete the transaction. A week after the operation, the patient and the donor are sent back to Israel.
In the Philippines as in other countries, except Iran, the law forbids the buying and selling of human body parts. But people who are ill are prepared to pay huge sums of money for a second chance on life. In the same breadth, equally desperate people driven by poverty are forced to sell their kidney to feed their families.
Into this organ trade have encroached individual brokers or organized syndicates, prepared to dupe people into giving up a kidney, often for a measly amount...
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