The police in Hyderabad on Friday busted a kidney sale racket and arrested one person hailing from Madurai in Tamil Nadu.
Investigation officials said that the accused, identified as S Shiva, allegedly cheated several poor people by contacting those who were interested in selling their kidneys, and swindled them of several lakh rupees.
Explaining his modus operandi, the police said that Shiva uploaded his profile on a website that connected kidney donors and buyers.
"Whenever a client contacted him after viewing his profile, he claimed that he is working as an agent for the 'Kidney Federation'. He would then claim that they have to register their name in the federation and as an advance, insist that they pay Rs 15,000 into his account as registration fees and collect their Aadhar, Pan card and bank account details," the police said.
Investigation officials also claimed that the accused would inform the victims that 50% of the amount would be deposited into their account prior to the operation and another 50% would be sent after the operation. He also gave them the option of selecting hospitals at Hyderabad, Bangalore and Chennai, the police said.
"Later, when the clients contacted him, he sent them fake certificates and a fake text message that Rs 1 crore had been sent to the seller's account," the police said.
Following this, the accused would allegedly block the victim's numbers.
"Like this, he visited Hyderabad a number of times and collected money from clients saying that it is a genuine federation and believing him, people deposited several lakh rupees into his account," the police said.
The arrests were conducted based on a tip-off and a decoy operation, by the Neredmet Police under the Rachakonda Commissionerate.
A case was registered under Sections 420 (Cheating), 471 (Using as genuine a forged document or electronic record) and 120(b) (Criminal conspiracy) of the IPC besides relevant sections of the Information Technology Act.
In an advisory, the police appealed to the public to be wary of such claims and not fall into a trap because they were being promised a huge sum of money.
They also said that selling a kidney or any other human organ was an illegal act and a crime.