Six people, including four doctors, have been jailed in China for illegally harvesting organs from accident victims for the better part of two years, according to reports. The organ theft ring removed kidneys and livers from 11 people in 2017 and 2018 at a hospital in the Anhui province. They obtained consent from the victims’ families with fake consent forms that framed the donations as official rather than for the black market. The doctors specifically targeted car crash victims or patients who had suffered cerebral hemorrhages and sold the organs to both individuals and other hospitals. The son of one victim asked one of the doctors about his mother’s body and said he was offered a large bribe to keep quiet. China has faced a severe shortage of organs for transplants in recent years, especially after halting the practice of harvesting the organs of executed criminals.
