KANPUR The illegal kidney transplant racket that recently sent shockwaves through the city’s medical community has revealed a sinister new dimension: its foundations were built on organised cybercrime. Police investigations have uncovered that the syndicate utilised Telegram and WhatsApp groups, initially disguised as online gaming platforms, to systematically groom, financially ruin and eventually coerce potential donors onto the operating table.
The disclosure adds a new dimension to a case that has already exposed the involvement of doctors, OT technicians and hospital operators across the city.
DCP (west) SM Qasim Abidi said the cyber connection emerged during the course of the investigation. “This transplant racket is linked to the world of cyber crime. Those connected to the syndicate would join Telegram and WhatsApp groups run by cyber criminals and lure donors through them. First, small tasks were given, then some money was paid. When the person’s needs grew, they were approached to become a kidney donor for larger sums,” he said.
Targets were first introduced to online gaming platforms through links shared in these groups, many of which were administered by Dr Afzal and Mudassar Ali Siddiqui, an OT technician who even performed surgeries.
They were given easy tasks and allowed to win small amounts of money, which were promptly transferred to their accounts to establish trust. Gradually, the difficulty and financial stakes were raised. When players began losing money and took loans to recover their losses, members of the doctors’ team would step in, presenting kidney donation as a way to clear their debts and start afresh.
To overcome hesitation, they were shown research papers from universities in the United States and London citing studies of people living healthy, normal lives with a single kidney. Donors were promised between ₹20 lakh and ₹25 lakh.
The case of Ayush Kumar from Begusarai, Bihar, one of the identified donors, has taken a significant turn. Ayush had told investigators he was a fourth-semester MBA student at Graphic Era Management College in Dehradun and that he sold his kidney to pay his college fees. But when police checked, no student by that name was enrolled in the MBA programme there. “The circumstances in which he concealed the true facts are under investigation. We will issue a notice and call him for fresh questioning,” said Abidi.
His account had already begun to unravel earlier in the investigation, when transaction records and call logs indicated that the more immediate reason for selling his kidney was financial pressure from a girlfriend, not tuition fees. The youth also has a prior connection to cyber crime. A mule account, typically used in cyber fraud and money laundering, was opened in his name at a Delhi bank, and the transactions linked to it are now under scrutiny. “The fact that a mule account was opened connects this to the cyber criminal angle. This is a subject of investigation and we will pursue it,” added Abidi.
Ayush, who donated his kidney on March 16 and received ₹3.5 lakh against a promised ₹9.5 lakh, is currently recovering at RML hospital in Lucknow.
Investigating officers have left to record the statement of broker Shivam Aggarwal, who remains in judicial custody. Based on the findings, police will apply for his police custody remand before a court. Aggarwal’s remand is considered crucial; investigators expect his questioning to shed light on the full timeline of transplants at Ahuja and Medilife hospitals, identities of all recipients, and precise nature of links between the transplant network and organised cyber crime operations.
A previous forensic examination of his phone had already yielded an audio recording suggesting that at least one woman who received an illegal transplant at a Kanpur hospital subsequently died at Max hospital in Delhi.
Police said more than 50 kidney transplant cases have now been identified in Kanpur alone. Nine people, including doctors and OT technicians, have been arrested so far, while six more suspects, among them the five doctors believed to have run the syndicate, remain at large.
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