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- Author: Mark Lobel, Kate West and Melanie StewartSmith
- Roll, from BBC News
4 hours ago
A man sleeping on the street in London entered a police station near Heathrow Airport. The first case of human trafficking for organ harvesting began in the UK.
The BBC has unprecedented access to the Metropolitan Police team investigating this landmark case.
Daniel (not his real name) was about to have the scare of his life.
He sat in an office at the Royal Free Hospital in London, conversing with doctors in his limited English.
The 21yearold street vendor from Lagos, Nigeria, had arrived in the UK days earlier for a “lifechanging opportunity”, he was told. He thought he would get a better job.
But in practice, doctors spoke to him about the risks of surgery and the need for lifelong medical care.
It was then, Daniel told investigators, that he realized there was no opportunity for work and that he had been taken to the UK to donate a kidney to a stranger.
“It was literally cut up like a piece of meat, you took what you wanted from it and then sewed it back together,” says Cristina Huddleston of Justice and Care, an antislavery group.
Luckily for Daniel, doctors suspected he didn’t know what was going on and feared he would be forced into donating his organs. They interrupted the deliberation.
However, Daniel was still not free from the traffickers. Back at the apartment where he was staying, two men examined him. That’s when he heard talk of sending him back to Nigeria to have his kidney removed.
He fled and, after sleeping on the street for two nights, went to a police station near Heathrow and launched an investigation that would lead to the UK’s first prosecution for human trafficking for organ harvesting.
That was in May 2022 and Daniel now lives under strict police protection. The BBC noted that this unprecedented case drew the attention of UK authorities to other cases of organ trafficking. This includes:
- The case of a 60yearold Indian man arrested in the UK on suspicion of conspiring to exploit someone for organ harvesting. He was arrested earlier this month and released on bail.
- A case referred to police by the Human Tissue Authority (the government agency that authorizes living organ transplants in the UK).
- A series of further tips from the same agency to police from people suspected of returning to the UK after illegally paying for transplants abroad.
London Police say they are still investigating “other suspects” from their original investigation.
human trafficking
Daniel’s case reveals the tactics used by traffickers to lure people into the UK under false pretenses.
When Daniel first got the chance to work in the UK while in Nigeria, he was asked to have a blood test. He thought it was about his UK visa, but what he really wanted was to check that his body was healthy enough to have his kidney removed.
He was then put on a flight to London albeit with no money and no access to his passport. Now his every move was controlled.
His traffickers then introduced him to the young Nigerian woman in hopes of getting a kidney.
The then 25yearold Sonia suffers from a severe kidney disease. She needs a transplant and is on dialysis five hours a day, three or four times a week.
Credit, LONDON POLICE
caption,
Sonia Ekweremadu with Daniel (not his name) in a restaurant
Daniel was taken to several meetings with doctors at the private ward of the Royal Free Hospital in London. An interpreter was also paid to teach Daniel to say what the doctors needed to hear.
But the plan failed and Daniel went to the police.
Her testimony led investigators to Sonia’s father, one of Nigeria’s most powerful politicians.
Ike Ekweremadu is a Senator and multimillionaire who funded his children’s college education in the UK.
At his trial earlier this year, Ekweremadu said he was misled and never intended to exploit Daniel. The jury heard that the defendant helped introduce legislation criminalizing organ donation for money in Nigeria.
Credit, LONDON POLICE
caption,
Senator Ike Ekweremadu is a famous Nigerian politician
mediator
It emerged in court that Daniel was not the only person who was brought to the UK and had his kidney removed. Another also illegal transplant was performed in 2021.
The man who received this organ sat in the dock with the Ekweremadus Sonia’s parents. He was the gobetween, the doctor Obinna Obeta, who orchestrated Daniel’s exploitation.
Obeta knew what the surgery required, having received a transplant himself at the Royal Free Hospital.
In delivering the verdict, Judge Johnson bluntly said of the first operation: “The Royal Free Doctors and the independent assessors of the Human Tissue Authority were misled.”
The lie was that the transplant in 2021 was performed on the premise that the donor and recipient were cousins. In fact, it turned out that they were not related at all.
Credit, LONDON POLICE
caption,
Obinna Obeta, who acted as mediator, and the senator’s wife, Beatrice, were also found guilty.
The trial also found that while Daniel’s transplant had been stopped, no one from Royal Free had informed police of their concerns meaning Daniel remained at risk.
The Royal Free Hospital told us that it had followed official guidelines in Daniel’s case and “therefore the decision was made not to proceed”.
The hospital also said it continues to “work closely with the Metropolitan Police to ensure everyone working in our transplant services is aware of the Organ Trafficking Act and what to do if they suspect a crime has been committed.” was committed”.
transplant tourism
In July last year, paying for a transplant abroad became a crime in England, Scotland and Wales. All doctors in the UK are now required by law to report anyone returning from abroad for transplant treatment.
Birmingham kidney specialist Adnan Sharif says it’s a difficult crime to prove “but we know it happens” pointing to a recent national health system survey showing there have been about 150 cases over a 10year period registered by returnees to the UK. Most cases involved kidney transplants.
We asked the Human Tissue Authority how many cases they have referred to the police since the law was changed last July.
Chief Executive Colin Sullivan told us a “handful” of cases had been referred adding that several of them had been reported by doctors.
He said the agency has now transitioned its staff and technology to more easily flag higherrisk cases.
“What does guilty mean?”
Cases of modern slavery are often very difficult to prove.
In the case of Daniel, London police officials believed investigations would take years because the perpetrators had left the country.
But on June 21, 2022, police officer Andy Owen received a call telling him that Ike Ekweremadu and his wife Beatrice were flying to London.
He quickly scheduled a meeting with his team at Heathrow. Armed police officers escorted the couple off the plane.
By confiscating the suspect’s mobile phones, the police were able to solve the conspiracy. News revealed a donation of 4.5 million naira (about R$25,000).
“It was like finding treasure,” Owen said. “I found more and more incriminating evidence.”
But dealing with such a powerful suspect wasn’t easy.
During the investigation, Nigerian senators attempted to move the trial to Nigeria.
They also wanted to “gain access to the victim,” said Officer Andy Furphy, “which obviously raises our suspicions.” We immediately felt that the victim was not safe.”
After the police sought legal advice, they were able to deny the request.
The BBC spoke to Adamu Bulkachuwa, the senator who led the delegation that visited Ike Ekweremadu in prison. He told us he wanted to “put both diplomatic and executive pressure on the UK government to see if we can salvage the situation”.
But Bulkachuwa insisted it wasn’t about “driving” his colleague home, explaining that “we also signed international human trafficking legislation.”
On March 23, the three people involved in Daniel’s case were found guilty. Ike Ekweremadu was sentenced to nine years and eight months in prison. His wife Beatrice got four and a half years. The middleman Obeta was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
Owen was in court with Daniel.
“Daniel said, ‘What does guilty mean?’ That’s the level of understanding he had for the criminal justice system.”
That reaction and the victim’s refusal to accept compensation from the perpetrators revealed a very different picture of Daniel, who was viewed by some as just a person looking to make money at any cost, Owen says.
The officer told the BBC that Daniel was glad they believed him and just wanted to get on with his life.
destroyed family
In Nigeria, this episode was heartbreak for Daniel’s family.
They now fear revenge attacks from allies of the powerful Nigerian politician he jailed.
We meet Daniel’s brother at the busy Lagos market where Daniel used to sell cell phone accessories.
He told us he had not spoken to his brother since his sudden disappearance in February 2022 and only found out where he was months later when news of the trial broke.
“We cried every day and my father suffered so much that he became very ill,” he says.
“Daniel was tricked and taken away.”
caption,
Daniel’s brother’s cell phone stand in Lagos
The man who rented Daniel a room with whom he spoke every day says Daniel would not have agreed to the sale of his kidney.
“Because he knows there are other ways to make money. He wouldn’t have done that even for a million pounds,” he said.
Daniel now fears for his safety. He is under police protection in the UK and believes he cannot return to Nigeria. He may never see his family again.
He saved his kidney and changed the law in Britain. But his life was torn apart.