Published 22:25, July the 23rd, 2009
Probe uncovers organ trafficker in N.J. sting
Prosecutors: Brooklyn man wanted $160k for a kidney from Israel
When the FBI pulled in its nets on a 10-year corruption investigation Thursday, agents arrested dozens of New Jersey politicians, rabbis and others. But the government’s oddest catch may be a Brooklyn man who prosecutors say trafficked in human organs.
Levy-Izhak Rosenbaum, 58, allegedly told an undercover agent that for $160,000 he’d get them a kidney donor from Israel. The donor was to get $10,000.
“I am what you call a matchmaker,” he allegedly said, noting he’d been doing it for a decade.
Surgeons and donation center officials said it is the first U.S. prosecution for organ trafficking they could recall.
“This will be a bit of a precedent,” said Dr. Francis Delmonico, director of Medical Affairs at The Transplantation Society.
The sale of organs is only legal in Iran, but the World Health Organization estimates 10 percent of transplants worldwide are done illegally — in China, the Philippines, Pakistan and elsewhere.
“It’s a human rights abuse,” Delmonico said. The poor donor is coerced and exploited and the broker pockets a large profit.
Of the more than 100,000 people on the national waiting list for organs, some 7 to 8 percent live in the New York area, said Julia Rivera of the New York Organ Donor Network. Most are waiting for a kidney.
