Published news articles have reported of individuals paying between $100,000 to $150,000 for a trafficked kidney. Source: Abraham McLaughlin, Ilene R. Prusher, and Andrew Downie, “What is a kidney worth?” ,Christian Science Monitor, June 9, 2004,(last accessed: January 19, 2006), and Larry Rohther, “Tracking the Sale of a Kidney on a Path of Poverty and Hope” [...]

According to Reuters, ” Commercial living donors, mainly poor and vulnerable individuals in need of money, are thought to supply 10 percent of the world’s transplanted kidneys. Source: Reuters, ” FACTBOX: The who, what, where, and why of organ trafficking,” Reuters.com, August 6, 2007.

The Economist, “In America, the average waiting time for a kidney is now five years, up from less than a year in the 1980s. In Britain, there are around 6,000 people who need a transplant - and less than 2,000 such operation take place each year.” Source: ” Organ Transplants: Your part or mine?,” The Economist, [...]

According to Dr. Nancy Scheper-Hughes of Organs Watch,the biggest consumers of illegally traded organs are the Americans and the Japanese. Source: Leslie Ferenc, “‘Living Cadavers” forced by poverty to sell organs,” Toronto Star, February 4, 2008, (accessed: February 5, 2008).

From the AP (via the San Francisco Chronicle): U.N. investigators found no substantial evidence to support claims that ethnic Albanian guerrillas killed dozens of Serbs in Kosovo and sold their organs, a court spokeswoman said Wednesday. Investigators visited northern Albania after U.N. officials in Kosovo passed on allegations of organ trafficking to the International Criminal Tribunal for [...]

Filipinos who sell their kidneys on the black market are getting paid the lowest amount in the world, according to a new report. From the Inquirer: “The living non-related donors that donate their kidneys to foreigners and rich Filipinos are the poor, vulnerable and the marginalized … and we have the mandate to protect them,” said Cabral.Abueva [...]

A top expert on Organ Trafficking stated that the world’s top transplant surgeons are involved in organ trafficking. From the Associated Press:   Top transplant surgeons are collaborating with criminal organ trafficking networks to target the desperate, an expert said Thursday. “It involves people from the highest level of their profession,” said Nancy Scheper-Hughes, founding director of Organs [...]

An organ trafficking network that is believed to have transplanted between 400 to 500 kidneys over 9 years was recently broken up by authorities in India.  From the International Herald Tribune: As the anesthetic wore off, Naseem Mohammed felt an acute pain somewhere in the lower left part of his abdomen. Fighting off drowsiness, he fumbled [...]

Reuters reports on the organ trafficking market in the Philippines. The Department of Health said the cost of a kidney in the country was estimated at 150,000 pesos ($3,600), with the donor getting only a third of the amount while two-thirds went to middlemen. Several Web sites offer all-inclusive “transplant packages”, ranging from $70,000 to $160,000, [...]

Two men in Israel were sentenced yesterday for trafficking humans for the sole purpose of harvesting their organs. In the indictment, kidneys were harvested at prices between $125,000 to $135,000. Like other activities of the black market, service providers are able to manipulate and control the consumers because of the lack of government oversight and legal [...]