They used to communicate with patients needing kidney transplant and locate people in remote villages from disadvantaged background as donors, luring them with money in return.
They had the tests done in Bangladesh to determine whether the donor's organ matched for the recipient.
If results come positive, they prepared fake documents denoting close kinship between the donor and recipient; took both to India and had the kidney transplant done there.
This is how an organised gang involved in illegal kidney trade benefited affluent patients at the cost of underprivileged individuals and amassed crores of taka in the process.
Members of Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) came up with the disclosure while talking to reporters after arresting five persons, for their involvement in the illegal kidney trade, during overnight drives at Joypurhat and Dhaka.
The arrestees are Shahrier Imran Ahmed, admin of two Facebook pages -- Bangladesh Kidney and Liver Patients Chikitsa Seba and Kidney Liver Chikitsa Seba; Mehedi Hasan; Saiful Islam; Abdul Mannan; and Tajul Islam.
Khandakar Al Moin, RAB’s legal and media wing director, said, “Around 100 low-income and poor people of the country became victims of the gang.”
The RAB official said they arrested them upon receiving complaints from the victims.
During primary interrogation, the arrestees admitted that they used to take Tk 15-20 lakh from each kidney seeker while they promised each donor Tk 3-4 lakh. But, after successful transplant, they used to swindle the donors and pay even less, he said.
One of the victims told RAB that he was forced to donate his liver in India when his kidney did not match the recipient there.
Moin said they adopted a process to dodge law enforcers in the country as well as hospital authorities in India, as it's difficult to verify documents denoting kinship.