SPAIN'S national transplant association has reported a series of adverts online where people are offering their organs for sale.
The site in question, milanuncios.com, wiped the adverts as soon as they were flagged up but says despite its ongoing efforts to police these, it was very difficult to keep tabs on them all.
Setting up a search for the word 'kidney' could bring up literally thousands of adverts for BMW parts or swimming pools – as in kidney-shaped pools, says the website.
But it is now working closely with the association, the ONT, to locate and delete any advertisements offering organs for transplants in exchange for cash.
Although many of the advertisers are simply desperate for money to buy food, pay bills and meet their mortgage or rent obligations, say the ONT and milanuncios.com, many more are likely to be either scams attempting to get money from innocent and equally-desperate patients on transplant waiting lists, or the work of mafia-style organisations.
Not only is it highly illegal to advertise organs for sale in Spain – potentially leading to up to a 12-year jail sentence – it is impossible to follow through with any such transaction because organ transplants are only ever carried out in official State or private hospitals under strict guidelines and using proper donor banks.
This means even if a person advertises organs for sale and finds a genuine buyer without getting caught, they would be unable to actually sell them and the purchaser would not be able to buy or use them.
