FIA busts kidney transplant racket in Islamabad: 5 held, houses worth Rs87.5m frozen

A kidney transplant done inside a house in Islamabad’s PWD Society, a patient who paid Rs3 million for it, and a donor who was promised a fraction of that. That is the case the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) laid out on Thursday after raiding the premises with the Human Organ Transplant Authority (HOTA).

Five people have been arrested, and a court has handed all five to the FIA on seven days’ physical remand. The allegations have not been tested in court yet.

What the FIA says it found

According to the FIA press release, reported by Dawn and The Nation, investigators found that a recipient named Muhammad Qasim had been given a kidney from a donor, Ramzan Arshad, outside the law.

The FIA describes an organised group with a full cast: agents, a doctor, a nurse, someone handling anaesthesia, a medicine supplier, people who arranged lab tests and a dialysis contact. It says the surgeries were carried out in residential houses by people without the required licences or medical qualifications.

Three suspects were picked up at the house and two more were arrested later. The FIA says raids are continuing to find the other people named in the case.

The money

• The recipient allegedly paid Rs3 million in cash.
• The donor was promised Rs400,000, of which Rs340,000 was his share and Rs60,000 was split between three agents as commission.
• Investigators recovered Rs1 million in cash.
• Three cars were seized, a Changan Oshan X7 and two Honda Civics, and their transfer was blocked through the excise office.
• Two houses were frozen under Section 5 of the FIA Act: a 10-marla house in Media Town bought for Rs62.5 million and a 5-marla house in Jinnah Garden Phase I bought for Rs25 million. That is Rs87.5 million in total.

One early headline, carried by APP, put the frozen property at Rs875 million. Dawn, The Nation and The Express Tribune all give the two house prices that add up to Rs87.5 million, so that is the figure we are using.

The FIA has written to banks for the suspects’ records and says separate money laundering proceedings against two of them are being considered.

How the paperwork was allegedly faked

In Pakistan, a living donor normally has to be a close relative, and HOTA must approve the transplant. Matching tests such as tissue typing, cross-matching and HLA are meant only for those approved relatives.

The FIA says the agents got around this by sending the donor’s samples to a hospital lab under the names of the recipient’s relatives, along with forged referral letters. Dialysis was allegedly arranged through a technician at an Islamabad hospital, and patients who became worse after surgery were moved to another hospital. Neither hospital has been named.

Police say the network also used private places in Bahria Town Phase IV and in Peshawar.

The charges

The FIR was registered under sections 9, 10 and 11 of the Transplantation of Human Organs and Tissues Act, 2010, which bans the buying and selling of organs, along with Pakistan Penal Code sections on common intent, cheating by impersonation and abetment.

Teams from HOTA, the Islamabad Healthcare Regulatory Authority and the Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan inspected the house, which has now been sealed. Each body will file its own report, and the seven-day remand will show whether the FIA can name the doctor and the hospitals involved.