In a case of suspected organ trafficking in living donor kidney transplants, a nonprofit organization in Japan had planned transplants in Sri Lanka this year and told an overseas coordinator it would send "two patients [at intervals] for a total of about 10 patients," The Yomiuri Shimbun has learned from audio and video recordings it has obtained.
Due to political upheaval in Sri Lanka, the surgeries have not been conducted.
The coordinator is a Turkish man, 58, who was arrested by Ukrainian authorities in 2017 on suspicion of involvement in organ trafficking. It is known that he received funds including a "donor fee" of about 15,000 dollars (about 2 million yen) from the NPO, Intractable Disease Patient Support Association, for a transplant of a living donor kidney for a Japanese patient in Kyrgyzstan last year.
