NEW DELHI - Indian investigators have reportedly carried out searches in an upscale New Delhi suburb in connection with an illegal organ-transplant ring whose alleged mastermind has family in Canada.
The Press Trust of India new agency says members of the Central Bureau of Investigation and forensic experts searched six places in Gurgaon, a nursing home and a guest house in pursuing their case against Amit Kumar.
Kumar, an Indian-born doctor whose family lives in Brampton, Ont., west of Toronto, has denied he led the ring which allegedly took up to 500 kidneys, often obtained from unwilling donors.
The ring allegedly raked in millions of dollars in profits by selling the harvested organs to clients who travelled to India from around the world in the past nine years.
Investigators reportedly questioned Kumar for a third straight day about foreign links to the ring and took charge of three suspected accomplices who had been arrested by Uttar Pradesh police.
Kumar appeared before a magistrate on Sunday and was remanded until Feb. 22, while his alleged accomplices have been remanded until Feb. 16.
Kumar was arrested Thursday at a jungle resort in Nepal after an international manhunt and deported to India on Saturday. He is charged with causing grievous hurt, illegal confinement, cheating and criminal conspiracy.
When Kumar was arrested in Chitwan, 160 kilometres south of Kathmandu, he was allegedly found with US$230,000 in cash and a cheque for $24,000.
Police said some unwilling donors, often barely literate day labourers, were held at gunpoint before their organs were harvested while others were tricked with promises of work.
Authorities said the ring spanned five Indian states and involved at least four doctors, several hospitals, two dozen nurses and paramedics and a car outfitted as a laboratory.
Police were also investigating whether the ring was involved in illegal kidney transplants in Nepal.
