Welcome to Unexplained Extra with me Richard McClane Smith, where for the weeks in between episodes we look at stories and ideas that, for one reason or other, didn't make it into the previous show. In our last episode, where the Bodies Lie, we looked at the tale of William Burke and William Hare, who in the early nineteenth century murdered sixteen people in Edinburgh, Scotland. The Westport Murders, as they have come to be known, constitute perhaps the most
infamous murder spree in Scottish history. But what makes this story especially interesting to me is the wider context within which it occurred. Today we might refer to Burke and Hare as serial murderers, but in many ways this label masks what was really at play. It is impossible to speculate whether these two men would have gone on to commit similar crimes, or indeed if they had murdered before. But what is known in the case of the murders in question is that there were a product of market
forces as much as anything else. In other words, the Westport Murders of what happens when financial desperation converges with an illicit but desperate demand thinking more about it, these murders brought to mind a very modern equivalent. One evening in August two and thirteen in the town of Fenchee in North China, six year old Binbin was playing outside his home while his mother tidied up after dinner. When it was time to call him back inside, however, the
boy was no longer there. Having checked the house and found no sign of him there either, the woman and her husband began frantically searching the nearby streets as other relatives joined in to help. They searched for three hours until one of them was alerted by the sound of a child's pained cries coming from a nearby field. Racing to the source of the cry, the parents found their son alive, but clearly in extreme distress, with his face
covered in blood. Gathering him up, they rushed immediately to the nearest hospital, telling the doctor that he must have somehow fallen over and hurt himself. The boy appeared to be bleeding from his eyes, peeling back the lids, the doctor was horrified to discover that his eyes were no longer there. The boy later revealed that somebody had abducted him, telling him when he started to cry. If he stayed quiet, they wouldn't gouge out his eyes, only to do exactly that.
The young boy was thought by police to have been just the next in a long line of victims in an ever growing black market trade for organs. In China alone, it's estimated that roughly three hundred thousand people will require an organ donation of one kind or another, yet only ten thousand will be able to find one due to a drastic shortage of donors. In two thousand and eight, Mohammed Salim Khan, from the town of mere Route in northern India was working as a laborer, earning on average
two dollars a day. Most days, Khan would head down to a local street corner where site managers would look to recruit builders for any work that needed doing. One morning, having been waiting for some time without any luck, Karn was approached by a man asking if he'd be interested in taking a three month job in Delhi, located some
eighty miles away, for three dollars a day. In a country that, despite its great wealth, still has around three hundred and twenty million people surviving on a dollar a day, it was a difficult offer to turn down. After making his own way to Delhi, Khan arrived at the contact address he had been given, only to then be taken to another address in the town of Gurgwn, just over the border in the next state. Khn was then led into a building in which two armed men were waiting
to receive him for the next two weeks. Kahn was refused permission to leave. However, since he was being well fed and promised that he would still be paid for his time, Kahn felt he had no reason to complain until one day, when, having strangely not being given any food. That morning, someone came to take his blood. When Karn inquired what it was for, another pointed a gun at his head and told him not to ask questions if he wanted to live. A short time later, someone else
arrived to administer an injection. When Karn protested, he was told not to worry and that it was good for him. Khan watched with alarm as the needle went in. A soft chill rushed through his body and into his head, and then everything went black. The next thing Karn remembered was coming around in a bed with the sense of someone standing over him and a horrific pain in his back as his eyes adjusted, that someone became a man in a surgical mask. Your kidney has been removed, he said.
If you tell anyone, we will find you and shoot. Carn took a moment to process it all. Then clushed at his side. Pulling up his shirt, he discovered a large piece of wadding taped to his body, and underneath it a ten inch red raw incision stitched together by thick surgical thread. Cahn, whose work supported five children, his mother and two sisters, was later told by doctors he would never be able to work as a laborer again, and he received nothing for his kidney. Are you always
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podcast today to get started. That's teladoc dot com Slash Unexplained Podcast. Mohammed Khan had been the victim of a long running and wide ranging organ harvesting ring led by a man calling himself doctor Amit Kumar at the time. In nineteen ninety four, Kumar, who was then known as doctor Santosh Rout was arrested for similar offenses, but later jumped bail before changing his name and re establishing his
criminal network. Officers, reacting to a tip off from one of doctor Kumar's recruiters, raided the operation's headquarters just days after Mohammed Khan's kidney was stolen from him. Unfortunately, Kumar
was able to escape and remains at large today. What they did find, however, was evidence that the operation as is often found to be the case with similar operations had infiltrated much of the legitimate healthcare industry, with many individuals in Delhi's medical community thought to be aware of
what was going on. As was pointed out in a two thousand and eighteen Newsweek article written by Jason Overdorff, such crimes are often very hard to prosecute, as many of the victims are seen to have entered into the arrangement willingly, with extremety, forcing them to accept money for their organs. Since this effectively makes them part of the criminal venture, they are often unwilling to reveal their involvement
to the police. As Jason Overdorff stated, doctor Kumar's network was thought to have involved at least four doctors, five nurses, twenty paramedics, three private hospitals, ten pathology clinics, and five diagnostic centers. Though in this instance the crimes were perpetrated in China and India, respectively, they are servicing an international demand.
At the end of the chain will inevitably be a wealthy individual from virtually anywhere in the world, driven by their own desperation to live or to save the life of a loved one. According to recent figures at organ DONA dot gov. In the US, over one hundred and thirteen thousand people are currently on the National Transplant waiting List, with one being added every ten minutes, and of that number, twenty will die each day still waiting for a donor.
With statistics like that, there is no wonder that a thriving black market has developed to service the shortfall. Recent statistics from the World Health Organization suggest that as many as eleven thousand organs are trafficked and sold on the black market throughout the world each year, with the average buyer thought to spend in the region of one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, and the average donor, if they are lucky enough to get anything at all, pocketing just
over three percent of that for their efforts. If you enjoy listening to Unexplained and would like to help supporters, you can now go to Unexplained podcast dot com forward slash support. All donations, no matter how large or small, are massively appreciated. All elements have Unexplained are produced by me Richard McClain smith. Please subscribe and rate the show on iTunes and feel free to get in touch with any thoughts or ideas regarding the stories you've heard on
the show. Perhaps you have an explanation of your own you'd like to share. You can reach us online at Unexplained podcast dot com, or Twitter at Unexplained Pod and Facebook at Facebook dot com. Forward slash Unexplained Now, it's time to take care of yourself. To make time for you. Teledoc gives you access to a licensed therapist to help you get back to feeling your best. Speak to a licensed therapist by phone or video anytime between seven am to nine pm local time, seven days a week. Teledoc
Therapy is available through most insurance or employers. Download the app or visitteldoc dot com. Forward Slash Unexplained Podcast Today to get started. That's t e l a d oc dot com Slash Unexplained Podcast