On April 16, Li Rui rented a private house to find a job because he could not engage in physical work after selling his kidneys. A06-A07 version of photography (except for signature) / Reporter Li Yingqiang of the Beijing News
Kidney transplantation in an abandoned factory: Buying kidneys costs 550,000, selling kidneys costs only 45,000
Hebei has knocked out a den of illegal kidney transplantation surgery, professional medical care is performed, and there is "check" before the operation and "healing" after the operation
Under the darkness, 21-year-old Li Rui and 22-year-old Shu Kang were put on black goggles, took away their phones, boarded a gray van, and were not allowed to talk on the way. About an hour later, the van was parked in an empty yard, and the dim lights of the two small bungalows not far away.
Li Rui, who removed his blindfold, was taken into a bungalow, which was a small operating bed. A person wearing a surgical gown asked him if he was sure to perform a kidney removal operation? Li Rui said two words: OK.
Shu Kang was taken into another bungalow and waited quietly. If all goes well, he will get a new kidney to replace the organ that has begun to fail in the body.
On November 29, 2018, the Public Security Bureau of Xinhe County, Xingtai City, Hebei Province dropped an illegal operation den, and an underground kidney sales group with a clear division of labor surfaced. Some of the gangs are responsible for finding kidney donors and recipients on the Internet, some are responsible for contacting doctors, anesthesiologists, and instrument nurses, some are responsible for the post-operative rehabilitation of donors and recipients, and some are dedicated to central liaison and coordination.
According to the indictment of the Xinhe County Procuratorate, from August to November 2018, the gang carried out 9 illegal kidney transplant operations in Xinhe County, 8 of which were suspected of organizing the sale of human organs. Li Rui and Shu Kang are one of the kidney donors and recipients who have undergone successful surgery. According to the defendant Guolin, the cost of buying kidneys for each recipient ranges from 500,000 yuan to 600,000 yuan, but the donor who sells the kidney can only get about 45,000 yuan.
On November 26, 2019, the Xinhe County Court heard the case in public. According to an insider of the Hebei Provincial Court System, on April 29, 2020, the Xinhe County Court made a first-instance judgment, and the 14 defendants all constituted the crime of organizing the sale of human organs. Among them, 5 defendants including Guo Lin were sentenced to fixed-term Four to seven years in prison, and the remaining nine defendants were sentenced to probation.
On April 15, Li Rui sold scars from the scalpel after selling his kidney.
Donors remotely controlled by QQ and telephone
23-year-old Li Rui was born in Gong County, Yibin City, Sichuan Province. He has a white and tender face and speaks softly. If it weren't for the 20 cm mark on the left abdomen, probably no one believed that the boy had sold a kidney.
Recalling his choice more than a year ago, he did not regret it. "At that time, I had no money at all, and I had to pay my cousin debt."
In September 2018, Li Rui's cousin sold the used car privately for 50,000 yuan and ran away. Li Rui, as a guarantor, had to pay the money on his behalf.
In November of the same year, Li Rui joined the QQ group recommended by a friend to find a job, and asked "what work is quick to make money", a group of friends suggested, "Sell the kidney, this one will make money quickly", some people say that a kidney can sell 10 Ten thousand, some people say that it can sell 200,000.
Two or three days later, someone actively added his QQ friend, saying that there is a project to buy kidneys-45,000 yuan for each kidney, and the buyer paid a red envelope separately.
For this price, Li Rui is difficult to accept. A day later, the kidney recipient sent another message: "Is your kidney still sold?" Li Rui thought about it and returned a word: sell.
Next, the kidney recipients who had never met began to issue instructions through telephone, QQ and other channels to remotely control Li Rui's every move.
According to Li Rui's recollection, on November 16, 2018, he received the first instruction: go to Wuhan, Hubei. He borrowed 200 yuan from a friend and bought a bus ticket from Gongxian to Wuhan.
According to the arrangement of the kidney recipient, Li Rui lived in a small hotel in Wuhan with a young man in the room. The young people claim to be from Jiangxi and also came to sell kidneys, but because they have not found a suitable buyer for the time being, they have lived here for two or three months.
After staying with the Jiangxi guy for less than half an hour, Li Rui was asked by the hotel owner to move to another room. "We were also asked not to chat with us." After 4 hours, Li Rui received a call from the kidney recipient again and asked him ID number to order train tickets.
At about 4 pm that day, Li Rui left Wuhan by train according to the instructions of the kidney recipient. As for where he went, he said that he could not remember. He only remembered that it was midnight when he walked out of the train station of the destination. The kidney recipient asked him to look for a bus across the square of the train station, and used Alipay to transfer 350 yuan for the ticket. .
In Li Rui's impression, it was the last time that the kidney recipient of QQ contacted himself. He remembered that it was a man with a very soft voice, "It feels young."
After removing the kidney buying and selling gang from the Xinhe County Public Security Bureau, Shun Mo Mo found 29-year-old donor intermediary Xiao Ping (Hubei Police has filed a case against it).
In general, Xiao Ping finds donors in two ways: one is to spread the net on the Internet and find donors of different blood types for later use; the other is that the gang comes online to provide recipient blood types, and then Xiao Ping searches for them purposefully. In terms of costs, the intermediary fee for each unexamined donor is several thousand yuan; the intermediary fee is 15,000 yuan for the donor who completes the medical examination and is qualified.
Xiao Ping told the police that in October and November 2018 alone, he had delivered four donors to the underground kidney trading gang in Xinhe County. Two of the donors passed the physical examination, and Xiao Ping made a profit of 21,000 yuan.
Matching type for donor and recipient
The kidney recipient contacted by Li Rui was Guo Lin, 42 years old. He was 42 years old and had junior high school education. He was sentenced to probation for embezzling funds. The indictment shows that Guolin is the first defendant in this case. In addition to overall coordination and benefit distribution, Guolin will also contact donors and recipients.
In contrast to the donor, Ge Xiong, in his 20s, was a kidney recipient and suffered from renal failure before surgery. Ge Xiong's testimony shows that around April 2018, a strange call asked if he was willing to buy a kidney for a kidney replacement. The operation cost was 550,000 yuan, and the cost of preoperative examination and postoperative recuperation was self-care. After several months of consideration, in early August of that year, Ge Xiong decided to change his kidney and went to Jinan Hospital for medical examination under the guidance of a kidney intermediary.
The indictment shows that Jinan, Shandong is one of the gang's footholds. According to an accused, his main duty in the gang is to take donors and recipients for pre-operative examination in Jinan and to adjust the body.
On the evening of November 16, 2018, the destination of Li Rui's sleeper bus was Jinan. In the middle of the night, a strange man dialed his phone and asked him to contact him when he arrived in Jinan.
At 8 o'clock the next morning, Li Rui, who arrived in Jinan, was asked to wait at the gate of the station. After 20 minutes, two young men appeared in front of him, one tall and one short. The chunky man was the one who talked to him at night.
The two verified Li Rui's identity and walked him to a hospital near the station for a medical check-up, blood test, urine test, and filming of his abdomen. Li Rui didn't know what the hospital was called, just remember to walk out of the gate of Jinan Bus Station, turn right, and walk straight along the road for more than ten minutes.
After the physical examination, the two bought a warm coat for Li Rui and placed him in a small hotel nearby. Li Rui lived there for 4 days. The chunky man paid his room fee every day, and gave him 100 yuan for living expenses. "He also asked me not to run around, to play less mobile phones at night, do not stay up late." Li Rui said.
On the fourth day of his stay, a man in a white coat and mask came to the hotel and took blood for Li Rui for the second time. A young man wearing a mask was also accompanied by a blood test. This person was Shu Kang. Li Rui did not know that Shu Kang was his kidney buyer.
"Generally speaking, before kidney transplantation, donors and recipients must be matched with red blood cells and white blood cells. If the donor is type O blood, which is commonly known as the universal blood type, then the recipient can be compatible with any blood type Otherwise, the blood types of both parties will be the same. "A kidney transplant expert from a top three hospital in a northern province told the Beijing News reporter. In addition, the donor must also check whether his kidneys are intact, whether there are kidney stones, tumors, and potential through CT and urine tests Recessive kidney disease, etc.
"These tests are matched and qualified, and a lymphotoxicity test is performed before the operation. That is, 100 live lymphocytes are extracted from the donor blood and placed in the recipient's serum to incubate for a few hours to simulate after kidney transplantation. The status of the two. "The above experts said that if the number of cell deaths does not exceed 10, it basically has the conditions for kidney transplantation. "Li Rui's second blood draw is probably a lymphadenosis test."
14 defendants including Guo Lin appeared in court for trial. Screenshot of the live video of the court hearing in Hebei Province
Doctor from Shandong, nurse from Hebei
On November 21, 2018, the day after the blood draw, Li Rui took a bus from Jinan, Shandong to Xingtai Nangong, Hebei. At the Sifang Hotel in Nangong City, Li Rui met Shu Kang. This time, he realized that the boy of his age was his kidney receptor.
At about 6 p.m. that day, Li Rui and Shu Kang boarded a gray van, handed over their cell phones, put on blindfolds, and after about an hour from the Sifang Hotel, the car drove into an empty small courtyard.
The indictment shows that this small courtyard was leased in June 2018 after Guolin and other defendants negotiated, and was located in Xinhe County, Xingtai City, Hebei Province.
On January 23, 2020, a reporter from the Beijing News saw at the scene of the small courtyard that the green fence was hanging in front of the iron fence door as a shelter, and the nearby weeds were overgrown. In the small courtyard, five bungalows were lined up one after another from west to east, and the rear windows were completely bricked. Three of the bungalows were opened internally, two as operating rooms and one as a dressing room for medical staff.
A nearby villager told the Beijing News reporter that this is a factory building that was abandoned for seven or eight years, and few people usually come in and out.
On November 21, 2018, Li Rui and Shu Kang were taken into a bungalow after entering the small hospital. The person in the room asked Li Rui: Are you sure you want to have a kidney removal operation? After confirmation, Li Rui was taken to the next room. There was a sliding door in the room, behind which was the operating room.
In Li Rui's impression, this operating room is very rudimentary, with only one operating table, two machines with no name, and nothing else. There were three or four people wearing masks in the operating room, but couldn't see their faces. One of them was wearing a white coat and surgical cap, and the others were wearing dark green surgical gowns. From their conversation, Li Rui found that all but one person wearing a dark green surgical gown were male.
The indictment showed that the chief surgeon who performed the kidney removal operation for Li Rui was the defendant Ji Hongyu, and the surgical assistants were Li Kun and Zhang Lunlun. All three were from Shandong.
On January 22, 2020, a village cadre in Jizhuang Village, Dezhou City, Shandong Province, where Ji Hongyu's household registration was located, told the Beijing News reporter that it has been seven or eight years since the Ji family moved from the village. But he knew that Ji Hongyu had worked in the Qianfoshan Hospital of Shandong Province (also known as the "First Affiliated Hospital of Shandong First Medical University", hereinafter referred to as "Qianfoshan Hospital") in Jinan. Ji Hongyu's uncle also told the Beijing News reporter that his nephew had worked as a doctor in the urology department of Qianfoshan Hospital, and his kidney replacement business was very good.
A person close to the medical administrative examination and approval system told the Beijing News reporter that after enquiries, Ji Hongyu's registered practice was Jinxia Lixia Hongqiao Clinic, a professional practicing physician in internal medicine; Li Kun and Zhang Lunlun did not have a practicing physician certificate.
On May 6, 2020, a reporter from the Beijing News called the Medical Office of Qianfoshan Hospital. A staff member said that Ji Hongyu had left the hospital in 2018.
On the same day, a reporter from the Beijing News called the Lixia Hongqiao Clinic. The person answering the phone said that he had never heard of someone called Ji Hongyu in the clinic, and said that he would ask the person in charge of the clinic and call back. As of press time, Lixia Hongqiao Clinic did not return a call.
According to Guo Lin's confession, Ji Hongyu, Li Kun, and Zhang Lunlun were introduced by their middleman, Li Mou (currently at large), whom he met online. Every time Guolin gets the donor, recipient physical examination, and matching data, he will be evaluated by Li Mou, who will contact Ji Hongyu and Li Kun, and then Li Kun will contact Zhang Lunlun. After a few people have determined the operation time, they will charter a car from Jinan to Xinhe on the day of the operation.
In addition to the above three persons, there are also anesthesiologist Liu Liming and instrument nurse Li Jiao. The indictment showed that a member of the gang was specifically responsible for contacting the two, and before each operation, they would drive them from Baoding to Xinhe.
The above-mentioned person close to the medical administrative approval system told the Beijing News that the anesthetist Liu Liming came from Century Concord Hospital in Baoding, and the device nurse Li Jiao came from Qiaodong Hospital in Baoding.
On January 16, 2020, a reporter from the Beijing News called the office of Baoding Century Concord Hospital. The person in charge said that Liu Li was clearly a doctor in the hospital and is still working in the hospital. On the same day, the doorman of Baoding Qiaodong Hospital told the Beijing News reporter that there are currently no more than three medical staff in the hospital and there is no nurse named Li Jiao.
Interprovincial recuperation after renal receptor operation
On the night of the end of kidney transplantation on November 21, 2018, the recipient Shu Kang left Hebei Xinhe and was sent to Yantai Renji Urology Hospital, Shandong (hereinafter referred to as "Renji Hospital") for convalescence.
According to Han Huilong, who is responsible for the post-transportation of kidney receptors in the gang, after the recipients came out of the small hospital where the operation was performed, they were first sent by private cars near a gas station in Xinhe County, and then sent by privately operated black ambulances. Yantai convalescence.
In Yantai, Shandong Sen Zhusen is in charge of contacting convalescence. According to Zhu Sen's statement, before the Xinhe case in Hebei, he and Guolin organized illegal kidney transplants in the Linyi area of Shandong, and thus met Wang Haibin, a fellow villager in Shandong.
Unlike Guolin, Zhu Sen and other unemployed people, Wang Haibin is a retired doctor, 57 years old this year. According to Zhu Sen's statement, Guo Lin paid 50,000 yuan for each recipient's post-operative convalescence. But he only transferred 20,000 yuan to Wang Haibin, and agreed that the post-operative recuperation period was 7 days.
On April 13, 2020, a reporter from the Beijing News came to Renji Hospital, Fuhai Road, Fushan District, Yantai City. According to Dean Li Fang, Wang Haibin joined Renji Hospital around 2017, and was a doctor before the case. "He came with his resume and doctor's qualification certificate, and wanted to cooperate with the hospital. He promised not to get a salary but would bring patients and divide half of the patients' income."
However, Song Li, director of the Nursing Department of Renji Hospital, said that Wang Haibin is not a doctor at Renji Hospital and "is from (Yantai Laishan) Peking University Hospital". Wang and Renji Hospital are only a loose cooperative relationship.
On April 26, 2020, a reporter from the Beijing News inquired through the “Registration Information for Doctors” on the official website of the National Health and Health Commission and found that there is no Wang Haibin among the registered doctors in Renji Hospital; "Wang Haibin", the practice scope is internal medicine.
As for which patients Wang Haibin introduced to Renji Hospital, Li Fang said he did not know. "Patients are in charge of the attending doctors when they come to the hospital. Wang Haibin is the attending doctor. I have never asked about these patients."
Li Fang said that from August to November 2018, when the recipients of kidney transplant surgery in Xinhe County were recuperating at Renji Hospital, they accompanied their children abroad to study. If it was not for the Xinhe County Public Security Bureau to come to the hospital to investigate after the incident, she did not know that the hospital had admitted many convalescent patients undergoing irregular kidney transplantation.
But Song Li said that Li Fang knew that these patients had received irregular kidney transplants. "She (referring to Li Fang) personally arranged the nursing department to cooperate with Wang Haibin's work and made it clear that these patients had kidney transplants and they were not done in regular hospitals." Song Li said that she once worried about whether it is legal to admit such patients. "But Dean Li's lover is a lawyer. She said that her lover said that it is illegal to give patients a kidney transplant operation in the early stage, and it is not illegal to convalesce for the patient in the later period."
Song Li also said that once, the hospital admitted two such patients at the same time, but there was only one ECG monitor in the hospital, which was not enough. She reported to Li Fang. After coordination, the hospital borrowed an ECG monitor from outside. Li Fang could not have been unaware of this.
After the incident, Li Fang provided testimony to the public security organs that from 2017 to 2018, Wang Haibin introduced 26 patients to Renji Hospital, 19 of whom were postoperative recuperative kidney transplant patients, and 8 were from Hebei Xinhe Kidney receptors are also included.
According to Song Li, she and Li Fang and Liang Fei were criminally detained by the Xinhe County Public Security Bureau on charges of organizing the sale of human organs before and after the Spring Festival in 2019, and later transferred to bail pending trial. Li Fang said that after investigation, the police confiscated more than 180,000 yuan from the illegal admission of patients in the hospital.
On May 6, 2020, a staff member of Yanshan City ’s Fushan District Health and Family Planning Supervision Office told the Beijing News reporter that he was not aware of the treatment of patients after Renji Hospital ’s treatment of illegal kidney transplants. situation. The staff said that this case is already a criminal case, and everything is handled by the public security organ.
The site of illegal kidney transplant operation is located in an abandoned workshop in Xinhe County, Hebei.
Kidney sellers hardly get compensation from criminal gangs
Unlike recipient Shu Kang who was sent to the hospital for convalescence, donor Li Rui was sent to a courtyard in a village in Xinhe County for convalescence. After regaining consciousness, Li Rui found himself lying in an unfamiliar bungalow for infusion. It was a man in his thirties who helped him infusion, and he was not tall and had a round face. After the incident, Xinhe police told him that this man was named Xu Ning.
On January 16, 2020, Xu Ning's father told the Beijing News reporter that Xu Ning had studied medicine many years ago but was not qualified to practice medicine.
On the bedside table in the convalescence bungalow, Li Rui saw a red transparent plastic bag with a thick stack of 100 yuan in cash. Xu Ning said that a total of 49,000 yuan was in the bag. "Forty-five thousand yuan is for selling kidney money, and the remaining four thousand yuan is for red envelopes given by kidney people."
Li Rui stayed here for 7 days because he could not leave the hospital and watch TV in the house. An old man takes care of his daily life and cooks for him, but three meals a day is either porridge or steamed bread and noodles. There is only one vegetarian dish per meal. Li Rui wanted to eat something good, so he gave the old man 400 yuan and asked him to buy a fish, a chicken and some fruits.
One night after leaving the convalescence bungalow, Li Rui was returned to his cell phone, put on his blindfold again, and a private car took him to Xingtai Bus Station. On the way back to Sichuan, Li Rui's unhealed wound oozed with bleeding water, and the mattress underneath was wet. "Until now, I haven't been able to stay up late for a long time, and I can't exercise violently. When I run, the edge of the knife will hurt painfully," Li Rui said.
On November 29, 2018, the Xinhe County Public Security Bureau arrested 12 criminal suspects including Guo Lin in the small hospital where Li Rui operated and Nangong Sifang Hotel. At that time, the small hospital was preparing for another kidney transplant operation. After the incident, two other suspects surrendered to the police.
An investigation by the Xinhe County Public Security Bureau found that from August to November 2018, the suspect Guolin et al. Carried out 9 illegal kidney transplant operations in the small hospital, including 8 operations.
Although the police checked the surgical equipment in the small hospital afterwards, on January 23, 2020, the reporter of the Beijing News still saw the medical records of suspected renal receptors and donors on the scene, as well as scalpels, drainage tubes, hemostatic forceps, etc. For medical devices, there are 3 suture needles in a small yellow bucket with blood stains on the needles.
On September 19, 2019, the Xinhe County Procuratorate filed a public prosecution with the Xinhe County Court against this gang suspected of organizing the sale of human organs; on November 26, the Xinhe County Court heard the case in public and all 14 defendants arrived court.
According to an insider of the Hebei Provincial Court System, on April 29, 2020, the Xinhe County Court made the first-instance judgment in this case, and the 14 defendants all constituted the crime of organizing the sale of human organs. Among them, 5 defendants including Guo Lin, Zhu Sen, Xu Ning, and Ji Hongyu were sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment ranging from 7 to 4 years and fined; 9 were Wang Haibin, Liu Liming, Li Kun, Zhang Lunlun, Li Jiao, Han Huilong, etc. The defendant was sentenced to probation.
In addition, the 14 accused persons and Renji Hospital's stolen funds totaled more than 1.399 million yuan were confiscated and handed over to the state treasury; at the same time, the operation beds, hand-push sterilized vehicles, surgical shadowless lamps and hearts seized by the police at the illegal surgical site were also confiscated. Electric monitor.
After the case, Li Rui and his father sought a lawyer and had consulted with the Xinhe County Court, hoping to punish the defendant severely while seeking more compensation for Li Rui. Father Li said that after all, his son had lost a kidney, and Shukang couldn't recover the loss with more compensation.
But the lawyer told the father and son that there was little hope of obtaining compensation. "Some people said that I was a voluntary act," Li Rui said.
In response, Yin Qingli, a lawyer in Beijing, said that, looking at the case, the kidney seller knew that his behavior was illegal but insisted on it. There was a subjective fault. "In this case, claiming compensation, it is difficult to get a satisfactory result."
(Li Rui, Shu Kang, Xiao Ping, Ge Xiong, Li Fang, Song Li, and Liang Fei in the text are pseudonyms)
A06-A07 edition written / Beijing News reporter Li Yingqiang