Costa Rica making headlines over human organ trafficking

May 28^th, 2013 (InsideCostaRica.com) Costa Rica is making international headlines after the Mexican newspaper, El Universal, published a story about an Israeli couple that traveled to Costa Rica in 2012 to purchase two kidneys for $6,000.

The report comes after a story published by Inside Costa Rica in January, in which a Ukrainian suspect organized the supply of human organ donors from the Ukraine to Costa Rica.  International media did not pick up the January story, however.

In the most recent report, an Israeli couple allegedly traveled to Costa Rica to purchase the kidney of a Costa Rican and a Nicaraguan.  The Israeli couple then submitted to transplant surgery at a private clinic in the capital city of San José.

Charges are now being made that Costa Rica has become a mecca of “transplant tourism,” and a top destination for the trafficking of human organs.

Clive Montalberth-Smith, a transplant surgeon in Costa Rica, has been warning the Ministry of Health regarding “unrelated donors” for five years.  The doctor said his warnings went ignored.

Currently, the only enforcement tool available to law enforcement is the Law Against Trafficking in Persons (Ley 9095), which includes penalties of 8 to 16 years in prison for anyone who “possesses, transports, sells, or buys organs, tissues, or bodily fluids in an illicit manner.”

So far, judicial authorities say they are investigating a single case of organ trafficking.