A Singapore tycoon was sentenced to jail for one day for his attempt to illegally buy a kidney on the black market.  From Bloomberg News: Retail tycoonTang Wee Sung was sentenced to one day in jail and fined S$17,000 ($11,813) by a Singapore court for trying to buy a kidney and lying about it in a case that’s [...]

Paula Mackinnon of the BBC reports on her experiences in the black market when researching the kidney trade. From the BBC: In my research I discovered some frankly shocking things. There is a black market in kidneys here in the UK. I secretly filmed people trying to sell me their kidneys, exploiting the vulnerability of someone who is desperate [...]

A Britain Surgeon is calling for the organ trade to be legalized and regulated. From The Independent: One of Britain’s leading transplant surgeons calls today for the illicit international market in donor organs to be legalised and brought under the control of governments. Professor Maqsood Noorani, who has witnessed the harm done by transplant [...]

Havocscope is currently estimating the illicit market value for organ trafficking to be $50 million based on the following sources. 1. According to the World Health Organization, the average price paid to a kidney donor on the black market is ” likely to be about US $5000. 2. An article from Reuters quoted [...]

Source: Carolos H. Conde, “Philippines cracks down on illegal kidney trade,” International Herald Tribune, April 29, 2008. 

Filipinos selling their kidneys on the black market can receive between $2,000 to $10,000.  Source: Carlos H. Conde, “Philippines cracks down on illegal kidney trade,” International Herald Tribune, April 29, 2008. 

The World Health Organization and Reuters produced a factsheet stating the top five locations where organ trafficking is prevalent.[2] The countries are as follows: 1. China 2. Pakistan 3. Egypt 4. Colombia 5. Philippines Source: Reuters, “FACTBOX: Five Organ Trafficking hotspots,” Reuters.com, August 6, 2007.

Organ sellers in Moldova receive between $2,500 to $3,000, with recipients paying between $100,000 to $250,000. Source: Carl Kovac, “Kidney trafficking is ” big business,”says Council of Europe,” British Medical Journal, August 2, 2003,(accessed: March 13, 2007).

In Moldova, brokers are paid $100 or $200 for each person they recruit to sell their kidneys. Source: Peter Baker, “In Struggling Moldova, Desperation Drives Decisions,” Washington Post, November 7, 2002,(accessed: March 13, 2007).

In Canada, as many as 50 people are believed to have paid as much as $75,000 for a kidney transplant in China. The organs are believed to have been culled from executed Chinese prisoners. Source: Tom Blackwell, “Canadians buy organs culled in executions,” National Post, May 6, 2006,(accessed: May 19, 2006).