A teenager in China's Anhui Province sold his right kidney to buy a new iPad 2, satellite TV channel Dongfang reported on Thursday.
Seventeen-year-old Xiao Zheng had been dreaming of a new iPad 2 for a while, but the price was way beyond his means. Zheng found an agent ready to buy his kidney on the internet and travelled to Hunan Province in central China to undergo surgery in a local hospital. With the 22,000 yen ($3,900) he was paid, Zheng bought a new iPad 2 and iPhone and then returned home.
The boy's mother said she knew nothing of his plans.
"Xiao Zheng returned home with a computer and a new Apple phone. We do not have the money for such expensive gadgets. At first, he did not want to tell me where he got that much money from. Later he confessed he had sold his right kidney to buy these things," his mother told the Dongfang channel.
After she learned the truth, Zheng's mother traveled with her son back to the hospital, only to discover that the operating theater had been rented out for commercial use to a businessman from Fujian Province. Several attempts to reach the agents failed, as their phones were switched off.
Zheng's health is deteriorating day by day, and his mother said she hopes she will be able to find the criminals who disabled her son.
BEIJING, June 2, (RIA Novosti)
