Fake ID Card Leads Police to Organ Gang

türkçe links to original Turkish article

(HaberTürk Newspaper, 1 July 2017)


Looking at Lokman S., seems his profession was preordained. 

Istanbul police arrested Mustafa S. (33) for having a fake ID card.
During interrogation Mustafa S. confessed to police that he had come
to Istanbul to sell his kidney and he agreed to help police catch the
organ-trading gang.  As a result, police captured gang leader Lokman
S. and gang members M.K., G.Y., H.S. and H.G.

Mustafa S. explained that "I was working as a glassmaker in Antalya.
I lost my father when I was 15 and became the head of my family.
My marriage ended because of a lack of money.  I wasn't able to send
money to my siblings studying in Izmir, who called me to say that
'they threw us out of our house so we moved in with our friends.' I
was 25,000 TL in debt and when I saw the add on the internet offering
25,000 TL for a kidney I sent them an application and a photo."

A while later the organ gang sent  Mustafa S. a bus ticket to Istanbul.
He related that "they brought us to a house in Beylikdüzü and they
gave me a fake ID card with my picture on it, saying 'this is your new
name.'  There were 5 others besides me in the house, all of them in
dire straits like me.  I went out of the house to get some air and was
stopped by police checking ID cards.  They figured out it was fake
and took me into custody."

"I told the police that I had come to Istanbul to sell my kidney and
that the gang had given me the fake ID card.  The police wanted me
to help them catch the gang and I agreed.  After that I told them
whenever we went anywhere.  On the day of the operation the police
got us and the prospective kidney recipient out of the hospital without
anyone noticing and caught the gang red-handed."

The gang's M.O. was to lure people in difficult circumstances into
selling their organs for between 20-25,000 TL.  The organs were
then sold to a recipient for 70,000 TL.  The fake ID cards were
prepared to show that the seller was a relative of the recipient, in
order for the operation to be conducted without the need to apply
to the "Organ Ethics Council".


              Beylikdüzü district of Istanbul