By Fred Kockott and Sapa-AP
Another international racket in the trade of black-market kidneys similar to the much-publicised scandal in South Africa in 2004 has been exposed in America.
It is the first documented case of organ trafficking in the US and the FBI's investigation into this alleged decade-long scheme is likely to be closely watched by SA's National Prosecuting Authority as it finalises its case against key participants in hospital group Netcare's "Israeli transplant programme".
The probe in South Africa could be headed for trial later in 2009.
Netcare, which faces possible organised crime charges, was paid R19-million by an Israeli organ broker, Ilan Perry, to harvest kidneys from live Israeli and Brazilian "donors", but argues it is "confident it did not knowingly participate in organ trafficking".
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The hospital states it had believed the donors and recipients were blood relatives.
It appears that at the same time that desperately poor Brazilians were being flown into South Africa to have their kidneys harvested for implantation into Israeli patients at Netcare hospitals, an overseas syndicate was at work, buying organs from vulnerable people in Israel for $10 000 (about R77 495) and selling them to patients in the US for as much as $160 000.
The "matchmaker", Levy Izhak Rosenbaum of Brooklyn, who allegedly brokered the kidney sales, was arrested on Thursday, 10 days after a meeting in his basement with a government informant and an undercover FBI agent.
The agent had told Rosenbaum that he was searching for a kidney for a sick uncle who was on a transplant list at a Philadelphia hospital.
Rosenbaum, 58, is a member of the Orthodox Jewish community in Brooklyn, where he told neighbours he was in the construction business.
Rosenbaum appeared to have a thorough knowledge of the ins and outs of kidney donations, including how to fool hospitals into believing the donor was acting solely
out of compassion for a friend or loved one.
"I am what you call a matchmaker," Rosenbaum said in a secretly recorded conversation.
"I bring a guy who I believe is suitable for your uncle."
Asked how many organs he had brokered, he said: "Quite a lot," the most recent two weeks earlier.
He is recorded saying that money had to be spread around liberally, to Israeli doctors, visa preparers and those who cared for the organ donors in the US.
"One of the reasons it's so expensive is because you have to shmear (pay others) all the time. So far, I've never had a failure," he bragged on tape.
"I'm doing this a long time."
Under US law, and almost everywhere else in the world, it is illegal to knowingly buy or sell organs for transplant.
Worldwide, the demand for kidneys far outstrips the supply. As a result, there is a thriving illegal market for kidneys.
Captain Louis Helberg, who headed the SAPS commercial crime unit's probe into Netcare's "Israeli transplant programme", said South African authorities had not been involved in the FBI investigation.
Helberg's investigations into Netcare's transplant
programme showed that the scheme had also involved Israeli donors who charged as much as $20 000 to part with their kidneys.
It later led to the active recruitment of living "donors" in the poorest quarters of the world, including Brazil, where people were persuaded to part with a healthy kidney for $5 000 and less.
As many as 300 such operations took place at Netcare hospitals in Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban.
Although six KwaZulu-Natal doctors and Netcare KZN transplant co-ordinator Lindy Dickson were arrested and charged in 2005 for performing 101 allegedly illegal harvesting and transplant operations at St Augustine's hospital, the charges were withdrawn in 2006 after the state declared it was not ready to proceed to trial.
In November last year, the NPA sent out advisory letters notifying Netcare, several doctors and other parties of various criminal charges they intended bringing in relation to the scheme set up by Israeli kidney broker Perry.
Advocate Robin Palme said final recommendations had been submitted to the NPA.
- This article was originally published on page 3 of Sunday Argus on July 26, 2009
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