Indian couple duped of over $53,000 while trying to sell kidneys

HYDERABAD: An Indian couple from Hyderabad was reportedly duped of over $53,000 at the hands of the cyber crooks after they tried to sell their kidneys to pay off their debts.

The cyber crooks lured the couple into depositing 4 million Indian rupees (around $53,672) into their bank accounts after promising to pay 50 million Indian rupees (over $670,907).

It emerged that the couple, M Venkatesh and Lavnya, who owns a stationery and bangles shop, had acquired a bank loan for the construction of a four-storey building, according to Indian media reports.

The debts then mounted to Rs15 million after their business was badly affected by COVID-19 lockdown which led them to sell their kidneys for paying off the loans.

READ: DOCTORS AT A MUMBAI’S TOP HOSPITAL CHARGED IN KIDNEY HARVESTING RACKET

Earlier in 2018, Indian police had arrested a woman’s husband and brother-in-law in West Bengal state after she complained that they tricked her to sell her kidney after her family failed to pay dowry.

The woman, Rita Sarkar, aged 28, had complained that her husband of twelve years and her in-laws tortured her often for dowry and took advantage of her appendicitis to steal a kidney from her.

Rita had been reportedly taken to North Bengal Medical College and Hospital by her parents relatives around three months ago and doctors found that her right kidney was missing.

Rita had filed a complaint at Farakka police station in northern Bengal, the native place of her parents, against her husband Biswajit Sarkar, a cloth merchant from Lalgola in Murshidabad district, his brother Shyamal and her mother-in-law, Bularani, who is on the run.

Later, the husband and his brother had been arrested. The men had confessed that the kidney was sold to a businessman in Chhattisgarh.