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| The four kidney sale brokers in court |
The court sentenced Van and Thinh to 6 years in jail each, while the two others each got 5 years.
The four earned commissions from Chinese groups that bought the kidneys, the court said.
The court pointed out that Chinese kidney traders can earn a profit of as much as VND1 billion (US$48,000) for each kidney they buy."
In 2008 Van sold one of his kidneys in China for VND50 million (US$2,400) through a ring led by two people simply known as Vuong and A. Trang, who lived in China.
After the sale, the ringleaders asked Van to find and lure Vietnamese people who were healthy but poor to cross the border to China to sell their kidneys for the same price.
Vuong and A. Trang offered to pay the brokers VND10 million for each successful sale.
Vuong introduced Van to Thinh, a woman specializing in illegally sending people to China from Quang Ninh province’s Mong Cai town.
Van later engaged Vang, who has also sold a kidney of his in China, and Truyen in brokering kidney sales for the Chinese ring.
After finding people willing to sell their kidneys, Van took them to Mong Cai to meet Thinh, who would take the volunteers to China by boat and then to Guang Xi province via bus, where they were arranged to stay in A. Trang’s house while waiting for the kidney sale.
Several months ago, following a tip-off from the public, police seized the four brokers, who admitted that they had illegally sent 19 people to China