Posted on 07/26/2009 7:52:27 PM PDT by Coleus
Levy Izhak Rosenbaum claimed to be in the business of buying and selling real estate, but he really bought and sold human kidneys for transplant, according to a federal complaint filed Thursday. The 58-year-old Brooklyn man was accused of trafficking in human organs, after a sting by an undercover FBI agent who agreed to pay $160,000 for a kidney from a live Israeli donor for her sick New Jersey "uncle."
Investigators said Rosenbaum bragged about doing "quite a lot" of transplants over the last 10 years. "I am what you call a matchmaker," the complaint said the man, also known as Issac Rosenbaum, told his customers. He typically paid donors $10,000 for a kidney, said an investigator at U.S. Attorney Ralph J. Marra Jr.'s press conference. "We refer to [him] as our kidney salesman."
The arrest, part of a broad federal investigation of political corruption and money laundering that netted 44 suspects, is the first federal prosecution for organ-trafficking for transplant in the United States. The illicit international commerce in live organs and tissues is fueled by the worldwide shortage of organ donors and long waiting lists for transplant.
"Kidneys are the new blood diamonds," said Nancy Scheper-Hughes, founder and director of Organs Watch, which documents and studies the trend at the University of California, Berkeley. "It's big, big money." When informed that Rosenbaum had been arrested, she said, "That's the man I've been hunting for over a decade. I gave his name to the FBI years ago."
Rosenbaum was part of an extensive underground transplant trafficking network centered in Israel that is responsible for buying and selling thousands of kidneys around the world each year, said Scheper-Hughes, a professor of medical anthropology at Berkeley. Rosenbaum told his "customers" that all the organ donors he recruited were from Israel. He acknowledged that it was illegal to buy and sell organs, and told them "you're giving a compensation for the time," the complaint said.
"There are people over there hunting," for donors, he said, according to the complaint filed by FBI Special Agent Robert J. Cooke. "One of the reasons it's so expensive is because you have to shmear all the time," or pay various individuals for their help. The remainder of the $160,000 he charged to bring a match to the United States was deposited in bank accounts operated by various charities as part of a money-laundering scheme that took in more than $3 million in two years, prosecutors said.
Kidneys can be transplanted from both living and recently-deceased donors, but those from living donors last longer, surgeons have found. Because people have two kidneys, they are usually able to donate one without suffering ill effects. But studies have shown that impoverished live donors, who usually lack follow-up health care, don't do as well after the operation. The consequences of the illegal trade in human organs led the World Health Organization in 2004 to urge nations to protect their poorest and most vulnerable citizens from transplant exploitation. That year, with Scheper-Hughes's help, police broke up a ring that arranged for Israelis to receive kidneys from poor Brazilians at a clinic in South Africa.
Thursday's announcement in Newark is tied to the same international ring, she said. Typically, the Israeli network recruits donors from recent immigrants to Israel, including Moldovans and Russians, she said. Living donors "are generally recruited from poor communities, squatter communities, shanty towns, prisons and mental institutions," said Scheper-Hughes. India has the highest per capita rate of organ donation, she said.
The need for donor kidneys is great: More than 80,000 people are on the waiting list for a kidney in the United States alone. Part of Rosenbaum's job was to concoct a fake relationship between the donor and the recipient, so that the donor could pass his psychological screening interviews prior to surgery – and conceal the fact that he'd been paid illegally for his donation, the complaint said.
"I put together the story by seeing your uncle," Rosenbaum said. "Could be … neighbors, could be friends from shul, could be friends from the community, could be friends of … his children, business friends." Donor and recipient would also have to meet, to make their stories match, according to the complaint. "So far, I've never had a failure," he told the undercover agent and the witness.
They haggled over the price, and the witness mentioned a previous kidney recipient he knew who had paid only $140,000. Rosenbaum laughed, and held firm. As part of the arrangement, the undercover agent in February called a "reference" that Rosenbaum had provided — a previous New Jersey customer who had paid Rosenbaum a year earlier for a kidney to transplant. The hospital was in the United States, but not in New Jersey, the complaint said. Asked what had motivated the donor, that recipient said, "I guess he needed the money."
A meeting was set up for Thursday, when Rosenbaum would be introduced to the "uncle" and an associate would draw a blood sample. Instead, Rosenbaum was arrested and charged in U.S. District Court in Newark.
Feds nab politicians, rabbis in 'international money laundering scheme'
and what about the surgeons, nurses, techs and hospitals involved in the transplants?
People who needed kidneys got them. People who were adults freely sold them. There’s a crime involved here?
People who needed kidneys got them. People who were adults freely sold them. There’s a crime involved here?
Technically, he’s a USED KIDNEY SALESMAN.
And dentists and funeral palors.
Government bureaucrats didn’t get the money
It’s a crime, but it shouldn’t be. Thousands of people die in America every year because we do not allow people to voluntarily provide kidneys to others for money.
In a lot of cases, yes. They’re recruiting desperate poor people in India, promising them safe and professional care, and them dumping them back on the streets with no follow-up care, sometimes permanently disabling or even lethal complications, and very often a lot less money than they’d been promised.
You hear somebody paid $150,000 for a kidney, and you think the seller must have gotten a big chunk of that, but often it’s just a few hundred dollars, while the rest goes to bribe officials to look the other way, and to a fat profit for brokers like Mr. Rosenbaum.
I agree, it would be better to have a legal process for this.
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