KIEV, January 3 (RIA Novosti) – Ukrainian prosecutors have sent to court a criminal case against a man accused of organizing the trafficking of Ukrainian organ donors to Ecuador, Costa Rica and Sri Lanka.
The suspect, an unnamed resident of the Ternopil region in western Ukraine, allegedly searched for healthy young people with serious financial difficulties and offered them to become kidney donors for $10,000, Ukraine’s Prosecutor’s General Office said in a statement on Thursday. The alleged criminal managed to traffic at least six people, and was paid $2,000 for each one, the statement said.
He supplied the potential donors with all needed papers and passed them over to his accomplices who organized the donor surgeries, according to the prosecutors. The donors were operated at medical centers of Ecuador, Costa Rica and Sri Lanka.
If convicted on human trafficking charges, the man faces the maximum of 12 years in prison. The prosecutors didn't elaborate on other alleged members of the criminal network.
