SAN JOSE, Costa Rica – Costa Rican authorities have detained three doctors and a Greek citizen as suspected participants in a ring that trafficked kidneys to foreigners.
Attorney General Carlos Jimenez says the doctors worked at a public hospital in San Jose but performed transplants of illegally purchased kidneys in two private clinics in other parts of the country.
He said Thursday the Greek citizen has a small pizzeria across the street from the hospital where he recruited donors to sell their kidneys.
Jimenez says the doctors conducted kidney transplant surgeries “with full knowledge that the donors were receiving money in exchange for their organs.”
In June, police arrested another doctor and a government official in the same case. That doctor was the chief of nephrology at the hospital where the three detained doctors worked.
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