A woman has been arrested in Venezuela for selling a kidney online. The suspect was arrested after illegally offering a kidney for $20,000 in an online marketplace, Venezuelan Attorney General Tarek William Saab said on Twitter on Sunday. The defendant’s offer said the kidney was from a 15-year-old girl and was “in perfect condition”.
According to Saab, the woman was arrested in the state of Portuguesa. It is now being determined whether the woman is part of a “criminal network”. Saab did not provide any information whether it was a case of fraud.
Venezuela’s organ transplant program stopped in 2017. The oil-rich South American country has been in a severe economic crisis for years. In the course of the crisis, the country’s gross domestic product fell to that of Haiti, the poorest country in the region.