Kidneys for cash: Inside a global organ trafficking network
Nairobi: Twenty-two-year-old Amon Kipruto Mely thought that by selling his kidney, he would start a new, better life. Life in a village in western Kenya, had been hard for him after the COVID pandemic. He's been struggling to find a steady income, moving from one job to the next — at a car dealer, a construction site and elsewhere.
Then, one day, a friend told him about a quick and easy way to earn $6,000 (€5,300). "He told me selling my kidney would be a good deal," said Amon. It sounded like a stroke of fortune, but it led him into a dark network of exploitation, desperation and regret.
This report is the result of a months-long collaborative investigation conducted by German media outlets Der Spiegel, ZDF, and DW, who together traced the paths of organ sellers and buyers, analyzed documents, spoke with whistleblowers and medical professionals, and uncovered how an international network — spanning from a hospital in Kenya to a shadowy agency that attracted organ recipients from Germany — exploited vulnerable people at both ends: The young, desperate for money, and the old, desperate for a life-saving organ.
Amon Kipruto Mely was introduced to a middleman who organised transport to Mediheal Hospital in the city of Eldoret, western Kenya. There, Amon says he was received by Indian doctors who handed him documents in English, a language he didn't understand.
A syndicate preying on vulnerabilities of the young and poor
He was not informed of any health risks, he said. "They did not explain anything to me. The one who had taken me pointed at people around us and said: Look, they all donated, and they are even going back to work."
After the operation, he was only paid $4,000 instead of the promised $6,000. From it, he bought a phone and a car that quickly broke down. Soon after, his health worsened. He became dizzy and weak and eventually fainted at home. At the hospital, his mother, Leah Metto, was shocked to learn that her son had sold his kidney. "They are making money through young children like Amon," she said.
Amon's story appears to be one of many. Willis Okumu, a Nairobi-based researcher of organized crime at the Institute of Security Studies in Africa, has spoken with several young men who told him they had sold their kidneys in the town of Oyugis, 180 kilometers (112 miles) southwest of Eldoret. "For a fact, this is organized crime," he said. Okumu estimates that up to a hundred young men in Oyugis alone may have sold their kidneys, many of whom suffer from health issues, as well as depression and psychological trauma. "I don't think they're going to reach 60," added Okumu, whose own work on the issue was published in January year on Enact, a project implemented by Interpol.
DW spoke to four young men in Oyugis who say they sold their kidneys for as little as $2,000. They recounted how, after their surgery at Mediheal Hospital in Eldoret, brokers asked them to recruit new donors for a $400 commission each.
Donor turned recruiter: A chain of exploitation
"There's a legal gray area that this syndicate is exploiting," Okumu explained. "There's no law that prevents you from actually donating your kidney for money and you cannot be prosecuted for that," he said, referring to information he received from the transnational organized crime unit at the Kenyan police.
What is allowed, according to Kenyan law, are organ donations to relatives or for altruistic reasons.
Speaking to DW on the condition of anonymity, a former long-time Mediheal Hospital employee revealed that the buying and selling of transplants started many years ago. Initially, recipients came from Somalia and donors from Kenya. But then, in 2022, recipients started to come from Israel and, as of 2024, from Germany. The donors for these well-paying customers are flown in from countries including Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan or Pakistan.
The source said that donors were asked to sign documents stating they were relatives to recipients they never met and consenting to a kidney removal without being informed about potential health risks while some of them were not even old enough. "Because of the language barrier, they just sign," the former employee said.
Shift to a more lucrative market
Ever since the switch from Somali recipients to Israelis and Germans, business has been booming, he added, with each recipient paying up to $200,000 for a kidney — a figure corroborated by multiple sources.
The former hospital employee told DW that an agency called "MedLead" was in charge of acquiring international donors and recipients.
On its website, MedLead claims to provide kidney donations within 30 days that are "according to organ donation law" and that the donors are promised to be "100% altruistic." On its Facebook page there are testimonial videos of people thanking MedLead for its help getting them a new kidney in Eldoret, Kenya.
The most recent video on the site shows Sabine Fischer-Kugler, a 57-year-old woman from Gunzenhausen, Germany, who has been suffering from a kidney disease for 40 years. After a first replacement kidney stopped working, she was desperate to find a second one. But the waiting list for a new kidney in Germany is long; it can take eight to ten years. In Germany, only kidneys of deceased people who explicitly agreed to organ donation may be used for transplants, and there are not enough donors for the more than 10,000 people awaiting a kidney.
Shortage of organ donations at home fuel desperation to look abroad
Sabine Fischer-Kugler only met her donor briefly, she said — a 24-year-old man from Azerbaijan. The contract claimed he was not being paid, though Fischer-Kugler said she paid between $100,000 and $200,000 to MedLead. "Maybe I'm a bit selfish because I wanted this kidney, and most importantly, the contract looked all right. But it's clear. The operation isn't as clean as it looks."
Under German law, paying for an organ is illegal, and offenders can face up to five years in prison.
The man behind MedLead is an Israeli citizen called Robert Shpolanski who, according to a 2016 indictment by the Tel Aviv Magistrate Court, has been accused of having performed "a large number of illegal kidney transplants" in Sri Lanka, Turkey, the Philippines and Thailand, together with a man called Boris Wolfman who allegedly headed the ciriminal network. Wolfman was accused of already having been involved in illegal transplantation activities elsewhere.
'It's a little fishy. You're not supposed to pay but you pay'
Shpolanski denies any connection with Wolfman. In an email to Der Spiegel, ZDF and DW, MedLead stated that it has no involvement in locating donors, that all donors are 100% altruistic and that MedLead has been operating transparently and in full compliance with the law since its foundation.
The investigative team went undercover in Eka Hotel in Eldoret, just a kilometer from Mediheal Hospital, to speak with foreign patients awaiting transplants. Some are visibly frail, traveling with family members. One Russian woman, who was waiting for kidney surgery for her husband, said, "Nobody gives their kidney for free." A 72-year-old Israeli man undergoing dialysis at Mediheal hospital said, "It's a little fishy. You're not supposed to pay but you pay. The story is that it's an old cousin of mine that somehow came to be in East Africa at the same time as me." At his age he would have no chance of receiving a kidney in Israel, he said.
Back in Nairobi, Dr. Jonathan Wala, head of the Kenya Renal Association, has treated several patients who returned with post-surgical complications. "We have reports of Israeli patients who come back with severe infections, some with kidneys that have basically died." His colleagues rang the alarm to Kenyan authorities about unethical transplants taking place at Mediheal Hospital.
Multi-million dollar business protected from 'the top'
In 2023, Kenya's health ministry commissioned an investigation into Mediheal Hospital and found that donors and recipients were often not related. Some high-risk transplants were conducted, such as on cancer patients or the extremely elderly. Almost all procedures were paid in cash. The report recommended that "the allegation of organ trafficking must be investigated by relevant authorities." Despite these alarming findings, the report was never made public, and no action was taken.
A local private investigator in Eldoret, who has tracked the illegal transplant trade, said at least two other hospitals are also involved. But, he said, if he investigated these cases, "my life would be in danger." "There are very powerful people who may be involved." Does it go up to the top of government? "Yeah."
The founder and chairman of the Mediheal Group is Swarup Mishra. The Indian native is a former MP and is said to have good relations with Kenyan President William Ruto. Despite persistent organ trafficking accusations, the president appointed him chairman of the state-owned Kenya BioVax Vaccine Institute last November, a role that allows Mishra to represent Kenya as a contact person for the World Health Organization and foreign government officials. Mishra did not respond to repeated interview requests and left a list of questions unanswered.
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