Doctor, gangster, 3 others held for alleged attempt to trade kidney

Doctor, gangster, 3 others held for alleged attempt to trade kidney

TOKYO (Kyodo) -- Police on Thursday arrested five people, including a doctor, a gangster and a former gang member, on suspicion of conspiring to illegally trade a kidney and faking an adoption between 2009 and 2010.

It is the first time that a doctor and a crime syndicate member have been arrested over involvement in an organ trade case in Japan, where there is a shortage of organ donors.

Toshinobu Horiuchi, a 55-year-old director of a clinic in Tokyo's Edogawa Ward who suffers from kidney failure, tried to arrange a kidney transplant, offering 10 million yen to Sumiyoshikai crime syndicate member Kazuhisa Takino, 50, to find a prospective donor.

Horiuchi and the donor, Fumihiko Sakagami, a 48-year-old former gangster, are also suspected of falsely informing the Edogawa ward office that Horiuchi had adopted Sakagami so that a living-donor kidney transplant between family members could take place, the police said.

The other two arrested were Horiuchi's wife Noriko, 48, and Hitomi Sasaki, a 37-year-old woman who lives with Takino, according to the Metropolitan Police Department. All five have basically admitted to the allegations, investigative sources said.

Around May to June 2009, Horiuchi asked Takino to find a donor and paid a total of 10 million yen from October 2009 to April last year after Takino introduced Sakagami to him. In January 2010, Horiuchi also registered the false adoption of Sakagami with the ward office, the sources said.

Horiuchi was supposed to have undergone transplant surgery to receive Sakagami's kidney in June 2010 at a hospital in Tokyo, the sources said.

But the operation was canceled after Takino demanded that Horiuchi pay an additional 10 million yen, the sources said.

Horiuchi eventually received a kidney from a man in his 20s using a different channel and underwent transplant surgery in July 2010 at Uwajima Tokushukai Hospital in Ehime Prefecture. Prior to the operation, Horiuchi had adopted the donor.

The police are also investigating the second channel on suspicion that there may have been a transfer of money between Horiuchi and the donor as well as a possible intermediary, the sources said.

The Organ Transplant Law bans trade in organs, and the ethical guidelines of the Japan Society for Transplantation only permit live organ donation between family members to prevent organ trade.

The law also bans asking for or promising payment for organs, as well as receiving commission for mediating such transplants.

(Mainichi Japan) June 24, 2011

http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20110624p2g00m0dm026000c.html