Organ harvesting: Trafficked for his kidney and now forced into hiding

Daniel was about to get the fright of his life.

He was sitting in a consulting room at the Royal Free hospital in London, speaking to doctors with his limited English.

The 21-year-old street trader from Lagos, Nigeria, had come to the UK days earlier for what he had been told was a "life-changing opportunity". He thought he was going to get a better job.

But now doctors were talking to him about the risks of the operation and the need for lifelong medical care.

It was at that moment, Daniel told investigators, that he realised there was no job opportunity and he had been brought to the UK to give a kidney to a stranger.

"He was going to literally be cut up like a piece of meat, take what they wanted out of him and then stitch him back up," according to Cristina Huddleston, from the anti modern slavery group Justice and Care.

Luckily for Daniel, the doctors had become suspicious that he didn't know what was going on and feared he was being coerced. So they halted the process.

 The BBC's File on 4 has learned that his ground-breaking case alerted UK authorities to other instances of organ trafficking. 

Read full story

Source: BBC News, 4 July 2023