Charges for removal of teenager’s kidney

Authorities have indicted five people in central China for involvement in illegal organ trading after a teenager sold one of his kidneys to earn money to buy an iPhone and an iPad.

The official Xinhua News Agency said prosecutors in the city of Chenzhou charged the suspects with intentional injury for organising the removal and transplant of a kidney from a 17-year-old high school student surnamed Wang. The defendants include a surgeon, a local hospital contractor, and brokers who looked for donors online and leased an operating room to conduct the procedure.

Xinhua says that about 1.5 million people in China need transplants, but that only around 10,000 transplants are performed each year, fuelling the illegal trade of organs.