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Updated 18.00pm
A SERB GANGSTER in Spain has been arrested after he attempted to buy an immigrant’s kidney for €6,000.
The criminal also threatened to kill him if he pulled out of the deal, police said today.
The gangster, head of a clan based around the sunny beaches near Tarragona in northeastern Spain, wanted the organ for his grown-up son who had kidney disease.
The plan came to light during a wider probe into a Serbian clan accused of burglaries in Spain and Germany, the chief of the Spanish police Ignacio Cosido told a news conference.
“The immigrant tried to pull out of the deal while he was undergoing clinical tests, so he was kidnapped, beaten and threatened with death to make him go ahead,” the statement said.
The person wanting to buy the organ was the leader of a criminal gang that specialise in robberies, who wanted it for a son suffering from kidney disease.
While investigating the burglary racket, officers found the gang had persuaded an undocumented middle-aged Moroccan immigrant to donate his kidney.
After undergoing medical tests, “he changed his mind, so the group detained him and beat him,” Cosido said.
The immigrant agreed to go ahead with the operation after the gang threatened to kill him.
Spanish police arrested the gang boss and his son and three other people for the alleged kidney-trafficking deal.
Spanish police also detained a further 48 people over the alleged burglaries. They are accused of recruiting children to break into rich people’s homes and steal jewellery and cash.
In March, 14 European nations in Spain signed the first ever international treaty to fight human organ trafficking.
The business generates €1.1 billion in illegal profits worldwide every year, according to the Council of Europe, which drew up the treaty.
In January 2014 Spanish police arrested a rich 62-year-old Lebanese man suspected of trying to buy the healthy liver of a Romanian.
First published 11.30am © – AFP, 2015
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I do feel sorry for genuine asylum seekers but in reality the vast majority seem to be economic migrants. Also our appeal system is a joke it really needs to be updated 3 appeals and your out. I have a friend who was working in the immigration office in Dublin and has since left and the stories he told me are a joke
@Graham Light: does that justify burning their accommodation down, or…
@Paddington C.: No certainly not
@Paddington C.: Do you know what caused the fire ? Maybe wait until you find out ?
@Pl O’neill: Ya like that was an accident, how dare anyone speculate that this fire was started deliberately.
100 of them to moville, 100 to roosky, 100 to Wicklow and 80 to kenmare all in the space of 4 weeks. Also great tourist towns too! Shame! Why can’t Saudi Arabia take in refugees/asylum seekers! DP costs Ireland €68 million a year. We have to say now from now on.
@Donal: Yawn.
@Donal: Google UN Global compact for migration.
It’s the end of the nation state as we know it.
I used to detest Justin Barrett, but I’ll be voting for the National Party if given the opportunity next time out.
@Donal: Because our politicians keep saying yes to Europe.I would not like one of these centres near me.Let the snowflakes begin.
@Donal: My comment about the building program was removed.
@Donal: DP is very profitable for those running them.
@Patricia McCarthy: Let me guess, you weren’t all on board with the Journal’s progressive pro-immigration policy?
That champagne socialist president has plenty of space in the aras for them in dublin, near all the help they need.
@Adrian: Ssshhh. He is rather busy right now, reading his own poetry.
All for allowing genuine asylum seekers. Let them go through the process and if genuine allow them stay. Ban appeals process this is the biggest problem with our system.
In regards to the fire it does seem very suspicious indeed but it could be genuine also it is a wait and see.
@JesusMoreBullshit: can see this happening more,.
Strange that my comment about being robbed last night by two South American men was removed. I wasnt stating that all South American people are bad.
not a word about this on rte 12 noon news…..
No room at any of the Inn’s for Asia Bibi.
yea right, the place just spontaneously combusted.
It was petrol bombed
@Diar O Doc: Any confirmation on that?
have your say