Human organ traffickers arrested in Iraq’s Mosul

Local Editor, 9-11-2009

Iraqi police in the northern city of Mosul have arrested four people charged with trafficking in human organs.

A police source said the men used intimidation and threats of kidnapping to force others to travel to Baghdad to ‘donate' their kidneys.

The operations were carried out in Baghdad hospitals in return of 4 million Iraqi dinars (approx. $3500).

The source, refusing to be named, did not say how many such operations were performed in Baghdad and whether charges against hospitals or doctors doing them were made.
But it said the arrests were made in the light of "intelligence reports."

After the 2003-U.S. invasion and despite crippling U.N. trade sanctions, Iraq has been the venue of kidney transplants in the Middle East

Two things helped the industry to prosper, the American invasion and Abject poverty which forced many Iraqis to give away organs.

Both reasons are still there, officials say.