LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - A global network of doctors reveals that traffickers are defying laws intended to halt their activities. These unscrupulous medicos are cashing in on rising international demand for replacement kidneys driven by the increase in diabetes and other diseases.

Patients in search of illegal organ transplants travel; as far away as China, India or Pakistan for surgery, can pay up to $200,000 for a kidney to groups who harvest organs from desperate people, sometimes for as little as $5,000.

The arrest by Israeli police of 10 people, including a doctor, are suspected of belonging to an international organ trafficking ring and of committing extortion, tax fraud and grievous bodily harm. Other illicit organ trafficking rings have been uncovered in India and Pakistan.

An organ broker in China who advertised his services under the slogan, "Donate a kidney, buy the new iPad!," told the journalists the operation could be performed within 10 days.

This thriving black market suggests that humanity itself is being undermined by the vast profits involved, highlighting the division between poor people who undergo "amputation" for cash and the wealthy sick who sustain the body parts trade, according to the World Health Organization.

"The illegal trade worldwide was falling back in about 2006-07 - there was a decrease in 'transplant tourism,'" Luc Noel, a doctor and WHO official who runs a unit monitoring trends in legitimate and underground donations and transplants of human organs says.

"The trade may well be increasing again. There have been recent signs that that may well be the case. There is a growing need for transplants and big profits to be made. It's ever growing, it's a constant struggle. The stakes are so big, the profit that can be made so huge, that the temptation is out there," Noel adds.

Noel cites the lack of law enforcement in some countries, and lack of laws in others, mean that those offering financial incentives to poor people to part with a kidney have it too easy.

Kidneys make up 75 percent of the global illicit trade in organs, Noel estimates. Rising rates of diabetes, high blood pressure and heart problems are causing demand for kidneys to far outstrip supply.

The organization does not know how many cases involved the organ being obtained legitimately from a deceased donor or living donor such as a friend or relative of the recipient.

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