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IN the private patient unit of the Royal Free Hospital, London, Sonia Ekweremadu, the 25-year-old daughter of the then deputy president of the Nigerian senate, waited for a kidney donor.
Private organ donation in the UK is limited to immediate blood-tied relatives, but Sonia carried a rare gene that ruled out family donors.
Sonia Ekweremadu with Daniel, the man who was brought into the UK to donate his organ[/caption]
The scheme was masterminded by her father Ike Ekweremadu, an influential Nigerian politician[/caption]
Physician Obinna Obeta served as the middleman for the operation[/caption]
To help find a donor, her father Ike, 60, approached physician Obinna Obeta, who sourced *’Daniel’, a 21-year-old street vendor from Lagos, Nigeria, and a UK visa was fast-tracked for him.
Sonia’s father assured the hospital – where 140 private kidney transplants are conducted every year – that Daniel was her cousin and a match.
But a court would later hear that a broker, in return for £1,500, had coerced Daniel into giving up his kidney.
The operation didn’t go ahead because hospital staff believed he didn’t understand he was going to have an organ removed.
Despite their suspicions, staff did not inform the police.
They only got involved after Daniel, fearing Obeta was going to have his kidney removed back in Nigeria instead, ran away and slept on the street until he had the courage to go to the authorities.
The Metropolitan Police’s modern slavery chief investigator Esther Richardson said the donor was “treated as a commodity,” and called the exchange “a transactional process just like any drugs or firearm deal”.
Esther said: “Had this been successful, the victim would have had long-term medical implications that may even have had the requirement for dialysis.”
She adds: “He is innocent and naive. Having never been on a flight, he was petrified the plane would fall from the sky.”
Obeta engaged in witchcraft to try to brainwash his victim not to escape, which is a common tool in the trafficker’s arsenal, especially in Nigeria where a curse is regularly performed on women being groomed for sex trafficking.
The rich lawmaker arranged for a man to donate his kidney to his daughter Sonia[/caption]
Beatrice was sentenced to four years[/caption]
After an investigation, Sonia’s father Ike Ekweremadu was arrested, convicted and sentenced to more than nine years in prison for trafficking the street vendor for his kidney.
His wife Beatrice, 56, was sentenced to four years and six months in prison. Obeta was convicted for helping traffic the street vendor.
During the trial at the Old Bailey in 2022, the court heard Obeta had earlier received a successful kidney transplant himself at the Royal Free Hospital.
His donor was also a young man he had falsely presented as his cousin. No prosecutions were ever carried forward on that case.
The case against the Ekweremadus was the first of its kind to be successfully tried under the UK’s 2015 Modern Slavery Act, introduced to crack down on organ trafficking and other forms of exploitation.
Daniel, who now lives under police protection in the UK, told investigators he “owed” Obeta his kidney in exchange for a visa and permit to stay in the UK.
“He [Obeta] did not tell me he brought me here for this reason,” Daniel said. “He did not tell me anything about this. I would not have agreed. My body is not for sale.”
Sonia, who was believed to be still awaiting a kidney transplant, was not charged with any crimes as she believed her donor was a relative she had never met before.
Statistics show that almost 10 per cent of organ transplants are from organ trafficking[/caption]
Although organ trafficking is rare inside the UK, the global organ trafficking trade was believed to be worth as much as £1.3billion annually.
In the second part of her book, investigative journalist Barbie Latza Nadeau has laid bare the extent of the sale of body parts, banned by the World Health Organisation (WHO) in 1987.
Almost 10 per cent of all transplants are from trafficked organs, according to the Global Financial Integrity think tank.
The WHO estimates 10,000 kidneys are traded on the black market a year, averaging more than one illegal kidney transplanted every hour of every day.
There are three categories of organ donors. Firstly, legitimate donors who have joined the NHS’s Organ Donor Register or those who have not “opted out” from the system, as it stands in the UK, meaning their organs can be used in the event of their death.
The second category is those who are murdered or trafficked for their organs without consent.
He [Obeta] did not tell me anything about this. I would not have agreed. My body is not for sale.
Daniel
They may be placed under duress, which can include debt bondage or extortion, and forced to sell a kidney or even a cornea, after which they continue living.
In the worst cases, they may be killed for vital organs like their lungs, heart or pancreas, which are sold to desperately sick buyers for large sums of money.
The third category is a living person who knowingly consents to sell an organ like a kidney for financial gain. This can be done illicitly on the black market, or legitimately, for example, to help a loved one.
“Organ trafficking may be facilitated by corrupt officials or criminal groups and may include brokers or other middlemen who connect individuals providing the organ with prospective recipients, negotiate the price, and identify medical facilities where the transplant can occur,” a 2021 report to US Congress said.
In 2023, the crime data-gathering group Havocscope, which keeps a tally on the black market in organ prices based on open-source information, including police reports and the dark web, listed the average global price paid to a kidney seller as £3,800, enough to support a family for several years in some developing nations.
The buyer, however, pays on average £116,100, depending on the country.
Brokers in places where organ trafficking is more prevalent, like the Philippines, make no more than £1,160 a kidney, while in places where the trade is less transparent, like Yemen, they can make up to £46,400.
Someone in China will pay around £36,700 for a kidney, while a transplant tourist in Israel will pay around £9,700.
Vital organs, which require a deceased donor, are naturally more expensive. A lung goes for about £242,000 in Europe, the group found.
For those in the organ trafficking business, the real money being made is in the US and countries that do not have the protective layer of a national public healthcare system.
In the US, kidneys sell for around £193,400 on the black market, skin around £8 an inch and a heart can fetch £774,000, according to the Medical Futurist.
In countries where national healthcare systems exist, private patients with the right connections can expect to pay £23,000 for a cornea, £116,000 for a set of lungs, £100,000 for a heart and £76,000 for a liver.
In 2020, one organ broker in Beirut admitted selling 30 kidneys a year, harvested from the residents of refugee camps and once bought an eye from a desperate donor.
The deal was done over WhatsApp and even included a photo of the eye to see if the buyer liked the colour.
There are hundreds of thousands of people on kidney transplant waiting lists worldwide, with the average wait in the UK between two to three years, and kidneys are available for only around one-third.
Mortality rates on waiting lists are high, between 15 and 30 per cent, depending on location – factors that allow for the exploitation of desperate people.
As well as backstreet clinics, organs are harvested in private clinics like that in London’s Royal Free Hospital and similar settings all over the world.
Intensive medical expertise is required not only to remove organs but to keep them in a fit state for transplantation.
Human organs have a short shelf life outside the body. Kidneys, if kept properly, can remain viable for up to 36 hours after removal and the donor can go on to live a normal life.
Things become murkier when organs like the heart are involved. The suggestion that people are murdered for their organs implies an unthinkable complicity by medical doctors and hospitals.
But a transplant doctor in Italy, who preferred to remain anonymous, insists that it is not the surgeon’s duty to vet the organs they are presented with.
THERE have been several reported cases of human organ trafficking from around the world. Middlemen often target desperate people living in poverty.
In cases of car accidents, for example, the doctor will be told a vital organ is available while a specialist team keeps the donor alive on life support.
The donor is then taken off life support, usually in accordance with family wishes or living wills.
Iran remains the only country in the world where buying and selling organs is legal for its citizens.
All other countries have banned the practice, at least on paper, but some countries, including China, have been accused by the group Doctors Against Forced Organ Harvesting of executing prisoners to harvest organs for their large population.
Globally, the demand for organs is high and getting higher because of the increase in cancer, chronic kidney disease and cardiovascular diseases, especially in developed nations.
In 2022, 157,494 transplants were carried out and WHO estimates that ten per cent of those used trafficked organs – meaning 15,749 organs came from people who either sold them illegally or were killed for them.
Organs are also trafficked on the battlefield, where prisoners of war are killed so their organs can be harvested for dictators and injured soldiers.
Battlefield organ trafficking was a common activity in the Syrian civil war and has been documented in Yemen, and most recently, the early days of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, where the illegal trade in human organs was well established before Russia’s invasion.
*Name has been changed to protect the victim
Battlefield human trafficking has been documented in countries such as Syria and Yemen[/caption]
Men show off their scars from organs taken from them[/caption]
Surgeons may be duped into using trafficked organs (stock photo)[/caption]
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UKRAINE’S chilling “death calculus” has revealed the staggering cost of each square kilometre seized by Vladimir Putin in his bloody war.
A shocking set of statistics has uncovered just how many men the despot has lost as well as the tanks he has let be destroyed in order to make his territorial gains.
Ukrainian soldiers load and fire an artillery weapon towards Russian positions[/caption]
Russia launched another deadly attack on Russia on Sunday[/caption]
A Russian tank up in flames after being struck by Ukraine[/caption]
The numbers have been worked out by Ukraine’s Khortytsia Operational Strategic Group.
They took into account how many tanks, weapons and human lives have been lost over the war per the amount of land the tyrant has grabbed.
The group revealed that in the first three months of 2025, Russia spent an average of 146 soldiers, one tank, two armoured combat vehicles and four and a half artillery pieces per square kilometre of Ukrainian territory.
Despite the huge toll the war is taking on Russia, Putin has continued to throw his men into his meatgrinder war effort.
Last month, the Kremlin announced they are looking to call-up another 160,000 troops in the biggest mobilisation in the last 14 years.
Despite the huge drive in numbers the country’s defence ministry claimed the campaign “is in no way connected” to the war in Ukraine.
It comes as the Russian tyrant has once again ramped up attacks on Ukraine in recent weeks.
Putin launched devastating missile assaults on Ukraine over the weekend in some of the most intensive and sustained attacks of the whole conflict.
Vlad’s forces unleashed deadly Kh101 missiles from over the Caspian Sea – in breach of the naval ceasefire announced in March.
Nato was forced to raise its war planes in response – both Polish and from other Allied members – to patrol air space bordering Ukraine.
Poland’s command headquarters said: “Attention – due to the intensive activity of the long-range aviation of the Russian Federation, performing strikes on objects located, among others, in the west of Ukraine, the operation of Polish and allied aviation in our airspace has begun.
“The RSZ [armed forces] Operational Commander activated all available forces and resources at his disposal.
“On-call fighter pairs have been [scrambled], and ground-based air defence and radio-location reconnaissance systems have reached a state of highest readiness.
“The steps taken are aimed at ensuring security in the areas bordering the threatened areas.
“The RSZ Operational Command is monitoring the current situation and subordinate forces and resources remain in full readiness for immediate response.”
This blast came just one day after a Russian missile strike on Zelensky’s hometown Kryvyi Rih, killing at least 19 people, including at least nine children.
A further 61 civilians were wounded.
Bloodied survivors were seen staggering into the open or being pulled from the rubble on stretchers as flames roared from shattered buildings.
RUSSIA and Ukraine agreed to a naval ceasefire in the Black Sea, brokered by the US.
The deal, announced by Washington at the end of March, aimed to reopen a key trade route and includes a commitment to “develop measures” to uphold a ban on attacking each other’s energy infrastructure.
But Russia said the ceasefire wouldn’t kick in until sanctions on its food and fertiliser trade are lifted.
That also included reconnecting key banks to SwiftPay, easing restrictions on Russian-flagged vessels, and lifting curbs on agricultural machinery imports.
The White House said it would “help restore Russia‘s access to the world market for agricultural and fertiliser exports,” though it’s unclear when the agreement comes into force.
President Zelensky welcomed the deal as “the right meetings, the right decisions, the right steps” — but called the US concession a “weakening of positions.”
He later accused Moscow of lying, saying the ceasefire shouldn’t depend on lifting sanctions.
Defence Minister Rustem Umerov said third countries could monitor parts of the agreement and warned that Russian warships straying outside the eastern Black Sea would be seen as “a threat to the national security of Ukraine.”
“In this case Ukraine will have full right to exercise right to self-defence,” he added.
The agreement also revives hopes for safe commercial shipping in the Black Sea — crucial for global grain exports — but with both sides trading accusations of fresh attacks, doubts remain over how long the fragile truce will hold.
Ukraine has repeatedly accused Russia of targeting residential areas and civilians throughout the three-year-long war.
But Russia denies deliberately firing on non-military targets, despite thousands of civilians having been killed in Russian air strikes, including on schools, hospitals and apartment blocks.
Ukraine and its Western allies in Europe believe these horror strikes show the dictator has no interest in brokering lasting peace in the region.
Washington has been trying to hash out the terms of a deal between Ukraine and Russia in a bid to end Putin‘s three-year invasion.
But the Kremlin has been insisting on a list of conditions and demands – delaying the process.
Kyiv agreed on an initial proposal for a full 30-ceasefire earlier this month – but this was quickly rejected by Putin.
Trump has previously said he was “p***ed off” with Putin for his lack of willingness to agree to a ceasefire.
The US President took a rare aim at Putin last weekend after the Russian tyrant called for president Zelensky’s removal in an effort to stall peace talks.
He said: “I was very angry, p***ed off, when Putin started getting into Zelensky’s credibility.”
He also threatened to impose a 50 per cent tariff on countries buying Russian oil.
Trump’s allies have urged the US President not to directly speak to the Russian tyrant until he fully commits to a ceasefire.
by Martina Bet and Jerome Starkey
VLADIMIR Putin must be slapped with a strict peace deadline to end his deadly games in Ukraine, Keir Starmer said.
The PM issued his warning as European allies met in Paris to step up deployment plans to enforce any peace deal.
Britain, France, and Germany will send military chiefs to Kyiv for talks on creating a multinational force to ensure Russia sticks to any ceasefire.
Sir Keir accused Putin of stalling negotiations to buy time.
He declared: “They are playing games and they’re playing for time. It’s classic from the Putin playbook.”
While he stopped short of setting a precise deadline, he made clear he wants progress “in days and weeks, not months and months”.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said: “Putin is not ready for direct talks.
“He wants war, and what can a man who wants war say at peace talks? I’m not going to swallow his narrative. I’m not interested.”
Asked about US envoy Steve Witkoff’s comments that sending troops to Ukraine would be absurd, Mr Zelensky said: “For us, these people are from another planet.”
And when asked what he thought of any progress, he said: “The world moves slower than the country at war. It is going slowly — but I can’t push anyone.”
In a rare criticism of Moscow, Donald Trump said Russia might be “dragging their heels” at talks.
But Mr Zelensky demanded the US needed to get stronger against Vladimir Putin.
A residential building following a devastating air strike in Kupiansk, Kharkiv region[/caption]
Flames engulf buildings in Kyiv following a Russian missile attack in the capital[/caption]
Sunday’s attack was a breach of the naval ceasefire[/caption]
The damage caused by a rocket in Kyiv[/caption]
A TEENAGER swapped his flat for a life on the tracks – and now calls a train carriage his home.
While most 18-year-olds are still figuring things out, Lasse Stolley ditched rent and set up shop on the rails, working and living among commuters every …
BRITS have been urged to chillingly prepare a three-day “survival kit” as spies warn mad Vladimir Putin is plotting to sabotage gas pipelines and cause devastating blackouts.
While the UK continues to pursue Net Zero environmental target…