Criminal Planet (2021) s01e07 Episode Script

-International organized
crime has no natural predator.
Crime syndicates are expanding
and forging alliances
across the globe.
As law enforcement
struggles to stop them,
up to five percent of
the global economy
is now in criminal hands.
I'm Paul Radu and
for the past 20 years
I have investigated
international organized crime
in the tune of $400 billion,
and this is a very, very small
slice of what's really going on.
-I think there are some
people. Let's go, let's go.
-In these series I'm working
with a team of reporters
around the world.
-Are you angry with yourself
for, for being part of this?
-To discover how a
generation of international gangs
are redrawing the criminal map.
♪♪
-One mile from the U.S.
border thousands of people
escaping poverty and
violence in Central America
find themselves trapped
in the city of Mexicali.
-Tonight, chaos
erupting on the border.
A humanitarian crisis
as questions increase
looking for solutions
to calm the situation.
-The U.S. Government's
hard-line stance on immigration
has left them
stateless and homeless.
They are now being targeted
by a vile criminal trade.
The buying and
selling of human organs.
♪♪
-I've come to meet Gonzalo
who has provided refuge
to over 7,000
migrants in Mexicali
in the last few years.
So tell me a bit about
this neighborhood.
What sorts of issues
have you been seeing?
-How many people have you
personally seen or experienced
that have had their
kidneys extracted?
-What happened to them?
-These people were
just sedated and tricked
and had their organs extracted?
♪♪
-I knew the buying and selling
of organs was happening here,
but hadn't expected to find that
people were also being drugged
and butchered.
Mexico's vile and exploitative
criminal trade in human organs
is fueled by a health crisis
across the border in the US.
In 2020, nearly 90,000 Americans
were waiting for
a kidney transplant
yet only one in five
received a donor.
On average 20 U.S. citizens die
every day waiting for
an organ transplant.
This leads some Americans
to turn to the black market
but they have little idea
about the human misery
that lies behind the trade.
After weeks of
working connections
in the criminal underworld,
we've made contact with
an organ trafficking gang
who claim to work across
international borders
bringing U.S.
patients into Mexicali.
They prey on migrants offering
them five thousand dollars
in exchange for a kidney.
I always feel nervous
about meeting
someone who operates
within the black market.
That's always something that
I get the jitters before going in.
Alright, let's go.
♪♪
[ Dog barking ]
It's a pitbull dog.
♪♪
-[ Speaking Spanish ]
♪♪
-There it is, for you guys.
How big is your team?
-And they include doctors?
This is part of your team?
-Why do you go after the
poor people to get their kidney?
-The organ trafficker tells me
that he pays off
corrupt medical staff
to get lists of kidney
patients in U.S. hospitals.
If they're interested
in his service,
they have to send
him a blood sample.
So your U.S. clients
going back to the U.S.
'cause that's what I'm
really curious about.
So you have Arizona, California.
-Nevada.
-Oklahoma?
♪♪
-Once the doctor and his
gang has tested the sample,
he scours the streets
of Mexicali for homeless
migrants who's
blood is compatible
with the American client.
He lets us follow him as he
preys on the most vulnerable.
♪♪
[ Siren wails ]
-Police everywhere huh?
But is he someone you'd
go after, he's kind of old.
-Oh, that's what I'm
seeing, he's going to --
-I see.
-A few minutes later, another
homeless migrant appears.
[ Conversing in Spanish ]
-To my left, there's
rows of homeless people
just laying on the street
and this guy came
from that same alley way.
People can live with one kidney
but it's a highly
complicated surgery.
Only the most desperate
would place their life
in the hands of a
black market surgeon.
[ Siren wails distantly ]
-Organ trafficking, organ
harvesting is a hideous crime.
For the facilitators,
this is just business.
They see these people as money,
you know and because
they're vulnerable,
because there's nobody
to defend them there,
many of these people
are also tricked into it.
They will, yeah, even tell
them you're young, you know,
your, your kidney
will, will grow back
which is obviously is
a medical impossibility.
I mean there's, there's, there
are so many risks involved
with these illegal surgeries
that are performed in,
in places that sometimes
aren't even hospitals.
In places you know
where there's no hygiene.
A lot of these people
may become sick.
It can also be deadly.
But kidney can be sold with
a hundred thousand dollars
and then the money
that the migrant,
the poor people get
are a tiny fraction of that.
So most of the money
is left with the facilitator
and the surgeon.
It takes a network to develop
this type of organ trade
and it's always, almost
always across borders,
'cause in order for
a facilitator of this
organ harvesting business to
be successful, to make money,
they need to operate
between rich countries
and poorer countries
or conflict areas
and economies that are stable
because this is
where the money is.
♪♪
-The trafficking gangs
work with a network
of corrupt doctors
across Mexico.
Surgeons here earn
just $22,000 per year,
fourteen times less
than doctors in the U.S.,
so some are easily
lured into the trade.
So my fixer just revealed
some information to me
about a doctor
who's been operating
in the black market
business for six years
and we are about
to go meet with him.
♪♪
[ Conversing in Spanish ]
-So can you tell
me a little bit about
how you got into the
clandestine part of your job?
-I've interviewed people who've
recruited migrants of the street
to sell their organs.
What do you think about that?
-Who are you operating on?
Are your clients American
or what are their background?
-Are the cartels involved?
-He claims the cartels sometimes
force him to work for free
but the organ trafficking
gang he mainly works for
pays him highly lucrative fees.
-How much money do you make?
-The surgeon refuses to tell us
where he gets
hearts and livers from,
but the implication
is horrifying.
One of Mexico's
notorious cartels
has been linked to the trade.
[ Siren wails ]
In 2014, The Knights
Templar were investigated
on suspicion of kidnapping
and murdering children
to harvest their
organs for sale.
There have also
been two horror stories
about dead tourists bodies
being stripped for body
parts in Mexican hospitals.
♪♪
But the scale of organ
trafficking in Mexico
is largely hidden as
most of the victims
can't turn to the
authorities for help.
-Migrants, because of their
illegal status in most cases
especially on the, on
the Mexico/U.S. border,
they have no rights.
They need the money
to cross the border.
They need, they need
the money to survive
and they have nothing
except their own bodies.
There are so many people
who are missing in Mexico
and nobody knows
nothing about their fate.
From time to time
they find these fields
where lots of bodies are,
are buried and many of
these people are, are migrants.
Many of these, you know,
bodies are, are burnt already
or chopped to pieces.
They can't really
go to the police
because many of the police
in these areas are corrupt
and they're working hand in
hand with the, with the traffickers.
The migrants being the
victims are not the priority at all
for the Mexican law enforcement.
There are so many other things
that they're focused
on like the war on drugs,
you know the U.S.
is trying to stamp,
to stop this migration
from Central America
via Mexico into
the United States.
The migrants and their
lives and their health
is no where on
the list of priorities,
neither in Mexico nor
in the United States.
So this makes them
the perfect victims.
They're victims that
will not leave a trace.
♪♪
-We've discovered migrants
are not the only victims.
We've made contact
with one trafficker
who recruits directly from
Mexico's prison system.
-[ Speaking Spanish ]
-How do you get someone to
sell their kidney from prisons?
-[ Speaking Spanish ]
-The trafficker claims his
money can help prisoners
get back on their
feet once they leave.
He is desperate to
close his next deal.
Are you nervous,
your feet are - no?
-I don't live with emotions.
I just - -You have no emotions?
-No. I don't have emotion.
[ Cell phone dialing ]
[ Tone plays ]
[ Conversing in Spanish ]
-You don't feel sad for him?
-[ Speaking in Spanish ]
-What's known as
transplant tourism
isn't just confined to Mexico.
A recent report found that
organ trafficking generates
an estimated 1.7 billion
dollars a year globally.
There's one country
where this trade happens
on an industrial scale.
In China it isn't run by
traffickers, but by the state.
-Disturbing news
just out from London.
The tribunal found that some
of the victims of the forced organ
harvesting are detainees
from the following
Falun Gong Movement.
Former Falun Gong
and Weger Muslim
in mates report
they were subjected
to ongoing medical check
ups and blood testing.
-In 2019 an international
tribunal accused China
of executing tens of
thousands of political prisoners
and selling their organs
on the black market
between 2000 and 2005.
The organs found a demand
from wealthy foreigners
from across the globe.
-South Korean police
say they're investigating
an organized crime group
that sends patients to
China for organ transplants.
The Chinese regime banned
organ transplant tourism in 2007
but the practice continues
with people willing to pay
tens of thousands of dollars
to skip the long waiting list
for organs in their
own countries.
-China claims it stopped
harvesting prisoner's organs
in 2015,
but in 2019 the tribunal
found that the constant supply
of organs available
in Chinese hospitals
could only be coming
from executions.
-It makes you think of
some grotesque restaurant
where you go in and you
pick your lobster in a tank,
but these are human
beings we're talking about.
-Chinese surgeon Dr. Enver Tothi
was a key whistle
blower for the tribunal.
-This photo is probably the
only photo I can find as a surgeon.
This is me.
-Once a highly skilled surgeon,
he now lives in
political exile in London
earning a scant
living as a Uber driver.
-One day my shift
surgeon asked me,
said, "Do you want
to do something wild?"
He say we are going
to the execution ground.
I was panicking.
"Why am going to
the execution ground?"
Not only me, the
nurse and my assistant.
Everyone was panicking,
"What are we going to do?"
Our job is to, to save people,
why are we going to
the execution ground.
You can see there are more
than 10 people got shot already
and they were wearing
prisoner uniform
and the, the head
was shaved like mine
and then the bullet come
through here and out from here.
So this part is blown away.
And they briefed me
do as quick as possible
remove the liver
and two kidneys.
Then I, I saw he's alive.
My chief surgeon was
standing to my left said
"Okay, cut here, through
that way, go quickly
because that kind of operation
that stance in China is legal.
It is encouraged by the State.
We got brain washed
from this kindergarten
so if anybody got shot
because he is executed
that means he's
enemy of the State.
♪♪
-This is large scale
illegal organ harvesting
and the targets are Uyghurs,
Tibetans, Falun Gong members,
these are innocent
people who are killed
by the communist regime.
It seems that Falun
Gong members, especially,
were targeted had
their organs harvested
because they live
these clean lifestyles
with no smoking, no alcohol.
We know that in 2006
alone, 11,000 tourists
went to China to get an organ.
The fact that in China
one can receive a kidney
in a matter of hours
points out to the fact
that China is meeting
this demand very
probably by killing people.
We're very likely witnessing
a modern day genocide
and the international
committee is not,
it's not even able to grasp the
extent of this possible genocide
because there's a
scarcity of information
because international
bodies are afraid of China.
So if China is not going to
be accountable for their deeds,
China will become even
more powerful and more daring
in just challenging
the international law.
China is like a bull that
marches on the world
you know, and
destroys a lot in its path.
-China is not the only country
that has allowed its citizens
to be butchered for profit.
Until 2010, transplant
tourism was legal in Pakistan
with 66 percent of all organs
going to foreign patients.
Since then the
Pakistani government
has made commercial
organ transplant
is a criminal offense
punishable by 10 years in jail
but criminal networks
have filled the void,
selling as many as a
hundred organs every month.
I've come to Pakistan because
I hear it's a real hot spot
for illegal organ trafficking
and the third most
popular country
in the world for
transplant tourism
next to India and
China and the cheapest
where kidneys are sold for
as little as a thousand dollars.
Organ trafficking
is so rife in Pakistan
that the government has
set up an agency to combat it.
Led by Adnan Bhatti,
the Punjab Human Organ
Transplantation
Authority, or PHOTA,
has so far put 11 organ
trafficking gangs behind bars.
-[ Speaking Punjabi ]
-Adnan has just
heard from an informant
that an illegal transplant
is about to take place.
♪♪
-[ Speaks Punjabi ]
-To avoid detection, the
gang's commonly move patients
immediately after surgery.
So Adnan's team must intercept
them as quickly as possible.
-[ Speaks Punjabi ]
♪♪
-Just as they're
about to engage,
Abnan receives orders
to call off the raid.
Pakistani Intelligence
are planning a wider
investigation and fear
Abnan could jeopardize
it by striking too early.
Back at his headquarters
he tells me how deadly
these illegal surgeries can be.
So how bad is the illegal
organ trade in Pakistan?
-[ Speaks Punjabi ]
-Surgeries carried out by
the gangs are often botched
and lead to multiple deaths.
Adnan is investigating
a new gang
led by a trafficker
called Musaffar.
-[ Speaks Punjabi ]
-I've come to meet the
mother of one of the organ
trafficker Musaffar's victims.
A woman named Rohana.
Her 30-year-old-son Hassain
just died two months ago.
-Hassain and his
wife, their wedding.
-Like these are really
happy memories.
-Yes.
-Hassain had recently married
and found a new
well-paid job in marketing
when his life was
tragically cut short.
He was approached
by Musaffar's gang
when he was at
his most vulnerable,
in hospital while
receiving dialysis
they offered to
sell him a kidney.
Desperate to get
better, he agreed
but the gang didn't test
whether the donor was a match
and Hassain's body
rejected the kidney.
[ Birds call ]
His mother Rohana
visits his grave every day.
-[ Speaks Punjabi ]
-Rohana sold her
house and family jewelry
to pay organ trafficker Musaffar
for her son's operation.
So the minute you
arrived in Rawalpindi
you started to
notice things were off
and were getting dodgy right?
What was going through
your mind in these moments?
-[ Speaks Punjabi ]
-Hassan survived the surgery
but his body began
to reject the kidney.
-[ Speaks Punjabi ]
-If Hassan had been
matched with a correct donor
and had proper surgery,
he would have had a 95
percent chance of survival.
After her ordeal, Rohana
got in touch with PHOTA.
-[ Speaks Punjabi ]
-PHOTA traced the organ
trafficker Musaffar's cell phone
and arrested him.
♪♪
-[ Speaks Punjabi ]
-Our local crew have got
access to interview him in prison.
-[ Speaks Punjabi ]
-Musaffar claims he's
not the criminal kingpin.
-[ Speaks Punjabi ]
-Musaffar has been
charged with murder
and removing human
organs illegally.
Rohana's son was not the
only victim of Musaffar's gang.
-[ Speaks Punjabi ]
-Around the same time, a
25-year-old man named Farooq
was picked up in an ambulance
with both kidneys missing.
PHOTA believes he
may have been the donor.
The ambulance driver
who was called to the scene
is still traumatized
by what he witnessed.
That's a lot of blood.
All of this is blood?
-[ Speaks Punjabi ]
-Where was he bleeding from?
-[ Speaks Punjabi ]
-When the ambulance
driver arrived,
Farooq was guarded by one
of Musaffar's gang members.
What did the gang
member look like?
[ Speaks Punjabi ]
-[ Speaks Punjabi ]
-The gang member
panicked and fled leaving
Farooq bleeding to death,
stripped of both his kidneys.
Like many victims of
Pakistan's illegal organ trade,
Farooq was a bonded laborer.
Landlords trap families
with high-interest loans
then force them to
work for a pittance.
Many see selling their kidney
as the only escape
from this debt slavery.
-With 2010, the year when
Pakistan banned this practice,
there was probably hope
that things will change
but what happened was,
the demand was still there.
Medical doctors,
surgeons were already
part of this system
inside Pakistan.
The recruiters, the
facilitators were still there
and the poor people
were still in the villages.
So while this trade had to go
under ground, what happened
was when you make something
illegal, you increase the price.
When you just
make it outright illegal
without taking care
of the environment.
Without taking care
of the root cause.
Without, you know, taking
care of all the moving parts
that make this trafficking work,
you don't solve the problem.
Although they
outlaw the practice,
it's still ongoing.
I mean you can see
Pakistan is advertising
via social networks
that they're willing
to sell kidneys
and in the end
what the facilitators
leave behind them is,
is a trail of, of dead
bodies in many cases
because when you're
doing this illegal activity
and you're obviously not careful
because you're after the money.
You obviously don't
have the proper means,
the proper place,
the proper surgeons.
But this is a risk that many
families are willing to take
and many desperate
people are willing to take
and this is what the
facilitators are counting on.
They just want the
money and they,
for them it doesn't matter
if the patient dies,
if the donor dies.
-The gangs recruit their victims
from the poorest
parts of Pakistan.
I'm on my way to Kot Momin,
a town in central Punjab
where agriculture workers
get paid less than a dollar
a day to pay off their
huge debt to land owners.
This town holds a
morbid open secret.
Almost all the people here
have sold their kidneys.
-[ Speaks Punjabi ]
-Zaffar works as
a social activist
documenting the
hundreds of villagers
who have fallen victim to
the trade in human flesh.
-[ Speaks Punjabi ]
-Many of the villagers are now
left with severely
debilitating illnesses.
-[ Speaks Punjabi ]
-Zaffar has received
a call from his friend.
Having already sold his own,
the man is now planning
an unthinkable step.
Selling his children's kidneys.
Zulifkar an agricultural
worker is in debt to his landlord.
-[ Speaks Punjabi ]
-So Zulifkar what you're telling
me is you have three children,
you're in three thousand
dollar debt and you're thinking
about selling their
kidneys, is that correct?
-[ Speaks Punjabi ]
-[ Speaks Punjabi ]
-I can't imagine how,
how tough that is for you.
[ Conversing in Punjabi ]
-How did you hear about it, this
market for selling your kidneys?
-[ Speaks Punjabi ]
-Which hospital?
-[ Speaks Punjabi ]
-Rawalpindi or?
-Zulifkar had his
own kidney removed
from the Mukhtar
Kidney Center in 2001
and was thinking of
taking his children there
but Zaffar has persuaded
him not to go ahead.
The Mukhtar Kidney
Center is infamous
for botched black
market surgeries.
-[ Speaks Punjabi ]
-It made the news in
2016 when 24 laborers
were held against their will
for forced kidney transplants.
-[ Speaks Punjabi ]
-The recipients have
traveled from all over Europe,
America, and the Middle East.
Many of them returned
home with complications.
The lead surgeon Mukhtar Shah
was put on a U.S. sanctions list
of human rights abusers.
His son Dr. Zihad Mukhtar
and one other
were also arrested.
But all of them only
served a short time in jail.
Pakistan claims to be clamping
down on the illegal kidney trade
but Dr. Zihad Mukhtar is
still allowed to practice today.
There are people who are
working the lower levels of the mafia
who are being
jailed and prosecuted
but it's the ones that
are in the higher levels,
the doctors, the surgeons
who are able to run away.
Take Zihad Mukhtar for example.
He went to jail for a year,
got out and is continuing
at the kidney center.
♪♪
The victims in this
vile international trade
all have something in common.
Whether they are
undocumented migrants in Mexico,
political prisoners in China or
bonded laborers in Pakistan,
they are all from the most
vulnerable parts of society.
As wealth disparities
widen across the world,
the black market organ trade
has become the grim new
face of global inequality.
If the wealthy nations
feeding this demand
don't take responsibility,
it sets a dangerous precedent
for poor people's bodies
are allowed to become
just another commodity
for international
organized crime.
-The illegal organ harvesting
that happens all over the world
is, is a global scourge.
It's hideous form
of modern slavery
because you don't
just use other humans,
you cripple them for life.
It's really fueled by
poverty and by conflict.
Poverty and conflict
create these masses of,
of people who are displaced,
who are dis-empowered,
who are voiceless.
Official estimates are that
there are twelve thousand
illegal transplants each year.
Now because of the
hidden nature of this crime
is really hard to verify these,
these numbers but in my
opinion, they are very conservative.
The exchange of money for
organs can never be ethical
because that's already
a level of question.
This is one of those
crimes where there's a need
for a kind of a, a global
law enforcement unit
who's able to understand
how the traffickers work,
how these surgeons with, without
ethics and without morality work
and how the
victims are recruited
and try to piece
everything together
to get to the real numbers
and to try to obviously
stop this illegal trade
that's hurting so many.
♪♪
♪♪
♪♪