Strict regulations in Japan have failed to stop a black market trade in organs. This week police arrested 5 people over a kidney transplant organised through a yakuza gang.

Strict regulations in Japan have failed to
stop a black market trade in organs. This week police arrested 5 people over a
kidney transplant organised through a yakuza gang.

The deal was complicated. A 55-year-old
doctor, Toshinobu Horiuchi, suffered
from kidney failure. He made inquiries about donors in the Philippines, but this fell through after a 2008 international agreement calling for a voluntary ban on cross-border transplants. Then, at a bar, he met the wife of a yakuza who promised to
arrange a donor for 10 million yen (US$125,000). Horiuchi was introduced to a 48-year-old former gangster who was to
be the donor. In Japan organ donors must be at least distant family members, so
Horiuchi also faked adoption papers. Then the deal fell through when the yakuza
asked for another 10 million yen.

Finally, Horiuchi adopted a 20-year-old man who eventually donated his
kidney. Police are investigating whether he paid for it. The man has disappeared. 

A medical expert told
the Mainichi Shimbun that this was “the worst development imaginable”
as it showed that strict guidelines on organ donation could be circumvented. The
newspaper said that yakuza seek out heavily-indebted donors through loan
sharks. Fraudulent marriages and adoptions are a common tactic. ~ Mainichi Shimbun, June 24, Yomiuri Shimbun, June 24

Michael Cook
Japan
organ donation
organ market

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Michael Cook

Michael Cook edits BioEdge, a bioethics newsletter, and MercatorNet, an on-line magazine whose focus is human dignity. He writes from Sydney, Australia.

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