Rise in online adverts offering organs for sale
Sunday, October 20, 2013 @ 7:35 PM
SPAIN'S national transplant association has reported a series of adverts online where people are offering their organs for sale.
The site in question, milanuncios.com, wiped the adverts as soon as they were flagged up but says despite its ongoing efforts to police these, it was very difficult to keep tabs on them all.
Setting up a search for the word 'kidney' could bring up literally thousands of adverts for BMW parts or swimming pools – as in kidney-shaped pools, says the website.
But it is now working closely with the association, the ONT, to locate and delete any advertisements offering organs for transplants in exchange for cash.
Although many of the advertisers are simply desperate for money to buy food, pay bills and meet their mortgage or rent obligations, say the ONT and milanuncios.com, many more are likely to be either scams attempting to get money from innocent and equally-desperate patients on transplant waiting lists, or the work of mafia-style organisations.
Read more at thinkSPAIN.com