International Kidney Racket Busted In Hyderabad

HYDERABAD: Police have busted an international kidney racket and arrested a person in connection with it.

Speaking to media persons at a press meet, West zone DCP AR Srinivas said a person named Dogiparthi Shanmukha Pavan Srinivas (25) hailing from Guntur, who was an aircraft maintenance engineer, has been arrested.

He had invested money in the stock market and lost it. Debt-ridden Srinivas got acquainted with some persons through Facebook and donated his kidney at a hospital in Sri Lanka in 2013 to clear his debts.

However, his greed for money kept on increasing and after he got acquainted with racketeers, he decided to enter into the illegal trade. He took the kidney recipients and donors to Colombo in Sri Lanka.

He was involved in seven such deals directly and touted 23 persons after taking money from them, assuring a kidney donor. In one case, a man who underwent a kidney transplant in Sri Lanka died in Hyderabad.

It was when a woman B. Bharathi from Srinagar Colony lodged a written complaint with Banjara Hills police station stating that her husband Nagaraj was cheated of Rs 34 lakh by Srinivas, that police started a look-out for him.

Bharati said that she and her husband got acquainted with the man when they were looking for a kidney donor online. Srinivas said he could arrange a Kidney donor in Sri Lanka through his sources and said that it would cost Rs 34 lakh.

Investigations revealed that Dogiparthi Shanmukha Pavan Srinivas was detained for two and a half years in Sri Lanka for illegal stay and was came back to India in April 2018.

Police registered cases under sections 406 and 420 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) against him and he was sent to judicial custody.