Teenager sells kidney for iPad 2

A 17-year-old high school freshman from Huaishan, Anhui province, sold one of his kidneys to buy an iPad 2.

The teenager, identified only by his surname Zheng, found a kidney broker online who offered 20,000 yuan for the organ. On April 28, Zheng traveled to Chenzhou in Hunan province, where the kidney was removed under the supervision of three middlemen. He was paid 22,000 yuan — roughly $3,400 — and went home with an iPad 2 and an iPhone.

His mother noticed the new gadgets, pressed him until he confessed, and took him back to Chenzhou to report the case to police. By then the middlemen's phones had gone silent. The hospital where the surgery took place, Chenzhou's 198 Hospital, had no license for organ transplants; it denied involvement and said its urology department had been contracted out to a Fujian businessman.

The story, first reported by SZTV in June 2011, became a global emblem of consumer frenzy taken to its darkest extreme. It also exposed the machinery behind it: an illegal organ trade that preys on poor teenagers, conducted through online brokers and unlicensed surgical setups.

The aftermath was grim on every side. Nine people were charged over the case; seven were jailed in 2012, including the broker who organized it and the surgeon who removed the kidney. Zheng's remaining kidney began failing soon after — blamed on the unsanitary conditions and lack of aftercare — and he ended up on dialysis, bedridden. The iPad was obsolete within a few years. The damage was permanent.

Based on reporting by the Global Times and SZTV.