organ trafficking

A doctor and a pizzeria owner were sentenced by a Costa Rican court Monday for recruiting poor people to sell their kidneys for transplants...

The five members of the ring allegedly sought out people with financial problems who were willing to sell their kidneys for between $6,000 and $20,000.

Costa Rica’s Prosecutor’s Office announced Monday that five people will go on trial for allegedly extracting and selling kidneys to buyers in Israel.

The prosecutor will ask the Criminal Court of San José to set a trial date for a 2013 organ trafficking case that allegedly spanned from Tel Aviv to Cartago as Costa Ricans were paid upwards of $20,000 each to sell their kidneys to Israeli buyers.

There are more laws on the book than ever in Latin America criminalizing human trafficking, but these laws rarely lead to prosecutions or convictions, according to a report from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.

Sexual and labor exploitation are the top two drivers of human trafficking in Costa Rica this year, but organ trafficking continues to concern authorities, according to Immigration Administration Director Kathya Rodriguez.

A pair of Costa Ricans said they traveled to Tel Aviv to sell one of their left kidneys for $20,000 to an Israeli business, according to Spanish news outlet El País.

The Legislative Assembly on Monday unanimously approved in a first-round debate the Donation and Transplantation of Human Organs and Tissues Bill, which would regulate all activity related to the collection and use of organs in Costa Rica, including donation, extraction, preparation, transportation, distribution and transplantation.