By Brian Kates, Daily News Staff Writer
Originally published in the New York Daily News, August 25, 2002
An international transplant Mafia based in the former Soviet Union is capitalizing on America's organ-shortage crisis by smuggling live donors into the country to sell their lungs and kidneys, the Daily News has learned.
Illicit organ donors from Moldova, the poorest country in the former Soviet Union, enter the United States—mostly at Kennedy Airport—on false student or tourist visas. They are whisked to hospitals where their organs are removed and sold, government sources said.
The Moldovan connection, the first organized-crime organ-selling ring uncovered in the United States, takes advantage of the vast difference between the need for lifesaving organs and the scarcity of supply.
About 86,000 Americans are currently waiting for a transplant; 6,124—about 17 a day—died last year for want of an organ.
The Brooklyn U.S. attorney's office, which is spearheading the Moldovan case, declined comment.
But a source involved in the investigation confirmed the FBI and the State Department's visa fraud section is closing in on the gang ringleaders, whose operatives match desperately impoverished donors to equally desperate patients.
There have been no arrests, but suspects are cooperating in the investigation, the source said.
The source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, called the ring global and said it operates in several states—including New York, where 8,000 people are currently waiting for transplants.
In some cases, the Moldovans have duped doctors into believing they are giving their organs altruistically to family members. But, the source said, "There are clearly some doctors who knew what the entire deal is about" and profit from it.
Some of the ring's beneficiaries are believed to be children whose parents pay huge sums to save their lives.