Desperation is driving illicit deals and trades involving cash for kidneys, with global syndicates stretching from Kenya to Germany and involving billions of dollars, according to a months-long investigation by German media outlets Der Spiegel, ZDF and DW.
The collaboration traced the paths of organ sellers and buyers, spoke to whistleblowers and medical professionals, and uncovered how an international network, involving a shadowy agency that attracted organ recipients from Germany, exploited vulnerable people at both ends: the young, desperate for money, and the old, desperate for a life-saving organ.
Amon Kipruto Mely (22),from Kenya, thought that by selling his kidney, he would start a new, better life when a friend told him about a quick way to earn $6 000.
“He told me selling my kidney would be a good deal,” said Mely. It sounded like a stroke of fortune, but it led him into a dark network of exploitation, desperation and regret.
He was introduced to a middleman who organised transport to Mediheal Hospital in the city of Eldoret, western Kenya, where he was received by Indian doctors who handed him documents in English, a language he didn't understand.
Syndicate preying on vulnerabilities of the young and poor
He was not told about any health risks, he said. “They did not explain anything. The one who had taken me pointed at people around us and said: look, they all donated, and they are even going back to work.”
After the operation, he was only paid $4 000 instead of the promised $6 000. From it, he bought a phone and a car that quickly broke down.
Soon after, his health worsened. He became dizzy and weak and eventually fainted at home. At the hospital, his mother, Leah Metto, was shocked to learn her son had sold his kidney.
His story appears to be one of many, according to Willis Okumu, a Nairobi-based researcher of organised crime at the Institute of Security Studies in Africa, who said several young men had told him they had sold their kidneys in the town of Oyugis, 180km from Eldoret.
“This is organised crime,” he said.
Okumu estimates that up to 100 young men in Oyugis alone may have sold their kidneys, many of whom suffer from health issues as well as depression and psychological trauma.
“I don’t think they’re going to reach 60,” added Okumu, whose own work on the issue was published in January on Enact, a project implemented by Interpol.
DW spoke to four young men in Oyugis who say they sold their kidneys for as little as $2 000 and who said that after their surgery at Mediheal Hospital, brokers asked them to recruit new donors for a $400 commission each.
Donor turned recruiter: chain of exploitation
“There’s a legal grey area the syndicate is exploiting,” Okumu explained. “There’s no law that prevents you from actually donating your kidney for money and you cannot be prosecuted for that, according to the transnational organised crime unit at the Kenyan police.”
What is allowed, according to Kenyan law, are organ donations to relatives or for altruistic reasons.
Speaking to DW anonymously, a former long-time Mediheal Hospital employee revealed that the buying and selling of transplants started many years ago. Initially, recipients came from Somalia and donors from Kenya.
But in 2022, recipients started to come from Israel and, as of 2024, from Germany. The donors for these well-paying customers are flown in from countries that include Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan or Pakistan.
The source said donors were asked to sign documents stating they were relatives to recipients they had never met and consenting to a kidney removal – without being informed about potential health risks, while some of them were not even old enough. “Because of the language barrier, they just sign,” he said.
Shift to more lucrative market
Ever since the switch from Somali recipients to Israelis and Germans, business had been booming, he added, with each recipient paying up to $200 000 for a kidney – a figure corroborated by multiple sources.
He told DW that an agency called “MedLead” was in charge of acquiring international donors and recipients.
On its website, MedLead claims to provide kidney donations within 30 days that are “according to organ donation law” and that the donors are promised to be “100% altruistic”.
On its Facebook page there are testimonial videos of people thanking MedLead for its help in getting them a new kidney in Kenya.
The most recent video shows Sabine Fischer-Kugler (57), from Germany, who has been suffering from a kidney disease for 40 years. After a first replacement kidney stopped working, she was desperate for a second one. But the waiting list for a new kidney in Germany is long; it can take eight to 10 years.
In Germany, only kidneys of deceased people who explicitly agreed to organ donation may be used for transplants, and there are not enough donors for the more than 10 000 people awaiting an organ.
Shortage at home fuels desperation to look abroad
Sabine Fischer-Kugler only met her donor briefly, she said – a 24-year-old man from Azerbaijan. The contract claimed he was not being paid, though Fischer-Kugler said she paid between $100 000 and $200 000 to MedLead.
“Maybe I’m a bit selfish because I wanted this kidney, and most importantly, the contract looked all right. But it’s clear the operation isn’t as clean as it looks.”
Under German law, paying for an organ is illegal, and offenders can face up to five years in prison.
The man behind MedLead is an Israeli citizen called Robert Shpolanski who, according to a 2016 indictment by the Tel Aviv Magistrate Court, has been accused of having performed “a large number of illegal kidney transplants” in Sri Lanka, Turkey, the Philippines and Thailand, with a man called Boris Wolfman, who allegedly headed the criminal network.
Wolfman was accused of already having been involved in illegal transplantation activities elsewhere.
‘A little fishy’
Shpolanski denies any connection with Wolfman. In an email to Der Spiegel, ZDF and DW, MedLead said it has no involvement in locating donors, that all donors are 100% altruistic, and that MedLead has been operating transparently and in full compliance with the law since its foundation.
The investigative team went undercover in Eka Hotel in Eldoret, just 1km from Mediheal Hospital, to speak to foreign patients awaiting transplants.
Some are visibly frail. One Russian woman, awaiting kidney surgery for her husband, said, “Nobody gives their kidney free.” A 72-year-old Israeli man undergoing dialysis at Mediheal Hospital said, “It’s a little fishy. You’re not supposed to pay but you pay. The story is that it’s an old cousin of mine who somehow came to be in East Africa at the same time as me.”
At his age he would have no chance of receiving a kidney in Israel, he said.
Back in Nairobi, Dr Jonathan Wala, head of the Kenya Renal Association, has treated several patients who returned with post-surgical complications.
“We have reports of Israeli patients who come back with severe infections, some with kidneys that have basically died.”
His colleagues sounded the alarm to Kenyan authorities about unethical transplants taking place at Mediheal Hospital.
Multi-million-dollar business protected from ‘the top’
In 2023, Kenya’s Health Ministry commissioned an investigation into Mediheal Hospital and found that donors and recipients were often not related. Some high-risk transplants were conducted, such as on cancer patients or the extremely elderly.
Almost all procedures were paid in cash. The report recommended that “the allegation of organ trafficking must be investigated by relevant authorities”. Despite these alarming findings, the report was never made public, and no action was taken.
A local private investigator in Eldoret, who has tracked the illegal transplant trade, said at least two other hospitals are also involved.
But, he said, if he investigated these cases, “my life would be in danger”.
“There are very powerful people who may be involved.” Does it go up to the top of government? “Yeah.”
Founder and chairman of the Mediheal Group is Swarup Mishra, the Indian native being a former MP and said to have good relations with Kenyan President William Ruto.
Despite persistent organ trafficking accusations, the President appointed him chairman of the state-owned Kenya BioVax Vaccine Institute last November, a role that allows Mishra to represent Kenya as a contact person for the World Health Organisation and foreign government officials.
Mishra did not respond to repeated interview requests and left a list of questions unanswered.
Meanwhile, Mely and others like him struggle to survive with one kidney, their health compromised and their hopes crushed: “If I could go back in time, I would have not accepted my kidney being removed. I hate myself for it.”
DW article – Kidneys for cash: Inside a global organ trafficking network (Open access)
See more from MedicalBrief archives:
Police use social media to bust kidney-selling ring
Medical sector helps facilitate global illegal organ trade
Prison for Nigerian couple in UK organ trafficking plot