Details of investigation into organ trafficking ring

CAIRO – 16 August 2017: In investigation records with the International Human Trafficking Network allegedly obtained, it was revealed that the financial need of the ‘donors’ was exploited and their kidneys transferred to paying foreign recipients.

Video evidence and recordings reportedly show the involvement of three hospitals in the trafficking ring: Dar Al-Shefa, Al-Amal Hospital and Al-Nada center for addiction treatment, which is not authorized to perform these operations.

Video footage of the surgeries themselves was also allegedly found.

The committee hired to investigate the use of drugs found that some drugs were expired, therefore possibly causing “adverse risks to the patient.”

The investigation allegedly shows the involvement of 7 siblings, owners of Dar Al-Shefa Hospital in Helwan who exploit the hospital in performing the illegal surgeries. Their ‘donors’ are all Egyptian while the recipients are foreign nationals: 5 Saudi Arabian and a Jordanian. One recipient died following complications from the surgery.

The surgeries were not recorded in the hospital’s official records, but were recorded by the Analysis Laboratory the hospital was contracted with, Cairo Lab. Also, there were no records found in the hospital for the patient who died due to complications.

The foreign patients are reportedly transported in an elevator from the garage to a ‘Gold’ suite that is cut off from everything else in the hospital but that is located near the operating room.

A housekeeper at the hospital alleges that she is the only one who knows that the hospital receives between LE 40,000 ($2,254) and LE 50,000 for every surgery. Other records obtained show various estimates.

Three of the owners and the housekeeper denied knowing of any illegal activities in the hospital when being investigated. The owners reasserted that their hospital specializes in open-heart surgery and catheterization. The owners denied having anything to do with the housekeeper claiming that she was fired 12 months prior following an incident when her husband stole the motorcycle of one of the hospital’s patients.

The housekeeper refuted that her financial records show that she had been receiving regular pay-roll from the hospital.

She recounts that the organ donors are often workers at the hospital. “I was scared, I thought they abducted them and stole their organs,” she said, “but I later learned that it is done in coordination with them.”

The owners claimed that since organ recipients need to be quarantined to avoid contracting diseases and their hospital does not have quarantine rooms that they are not equipped to perform these surgeries.