A special team formed by the Erode Police on Saturday arrested two Nigerian nationals for allegedly being part of a ‘kidney racket’ – where they sought people who wanted to sell their kidneys and scammed them of money. Selling organs is illegal in India.
The accused have been identified as 29-year-old S Kolin Stonty and 32-year-old O Ogova Stephen. According to reports, the duo had created a fake Facebook page in the name of Erode-based Kalyani Kidney Care Centre and also carried an advertisement with the photo of a doctor from the centre, seeking kidney “donors.” The advertisement stated that donors will have to register themselves first by depositing a fee of Rs 15,000 to a savings bank account with a nationalised bank in Mizoram, and would receive Rs 3 Crore for a kidney.
Managing director of Kalyani Kidney Care Centre, M Prabhakar, filed a police complaint when the hospital started receiving calls from people wanting to sell their kidneys last month. A report in the Deccan Chronicle said that a woman from Hyderabad had reached out to the hospital after depositing the registration fee. Many stated that the phone number given on the Facebook page did not give them any further information, forcing them to reach out to the hospital instead.
The Hindu said that based on this complaint, the police blocked two such Facebook pages. Yet the hospital continued to receive such calls.
On June 4, two special teams were formed by the Erode North police station and a case was registered against unknown persons. On June 29, the accused were picked up from Bengaluru and initial inquiries have revealed that the duo has scammed over 500 people across the country, police said.
Laptops, mobile phones, ATM cards, bank passbooks and a car were seized from them following which further investigations are being conducted. The two were produced in the court and later sent to prison on Saturday