India: Debt ridden couple tries to sell kidney, end up losing Rs1.7 million in online fraud

Hyderabad: A debt-ridden couple’s attempts in Andhra Pradesh to sell a kidney to come out of a financial crisis has ended up taking them further into debt.

A husband and wife in Vijaywada were promised Rs20 million (Dh1 million)for a kidney, but were cheated after being asked to pay processing fees, according to Andhra Pradesh police,

Police inspector M Satyanarayana said that the couple, Kameshwar and Bhargavi, started scouting for a prospective buyer of a kidney as they had fallen on hard times after their medical shop incurred huge losses. “The medical shop was set up in partnership with another friend and following some dispute it ran into losses,” Satyanarayana said.

To come out of the distress, Bhargavi decided to sell her kidney and during their search for a buyer, they came across one ‘Sakra World Hospital’ in New Delhi. A person named Chopra Singh started negotiating online with them with an offer of Rs 20 million for one kidney.

As the desperate couple continued to communicate with the broker online, he asked them to pay a processing fee promising that it would be refunded once the kidney was transplanted.

The broker continued to fleece the couple on one pretext or the other and made the couple pay him Rs 1.7 million over 24 transactions into his bank account. The couple borrowed money from various sources and even raised a bank loan to pay him.

Kameswar and Bhargavi decided to approach the police when the fraudster demanded another half a million rupees to conclude the deal. “We realised that it was a fraud and the person was cheating us online,” a distraught Kameswar said.