A woman who offered a kidney “from a 15-year-old girl” on the internet for $20,000 has been arrested, Venezuela’s attorney general Tarek William Saab announced overnight.
“Marielys del Carmen Yedra was arrested in (the state of) Portuguesa (…) after having illegally offered a kidney for 20,000 USD on the Marketplace site”, according to a tweet from the prosecutor.
The prosecutor showed the ad which reads that the kidney is from a “15-year-old girl in perfect condition.”
The prosecutor stressed that the authorities would investigate to find out if it was “a criminal network”, but he did not specify how the defendant was to obtain the kidney or even if it was not a question. of a scam.
The organ transplant program ceased to operate in 2017 in a country hard hit by the worst economic crisis in its history, nearly 8 years of recession that caused GDP per capita to plummet to Haiti’s level.
The Venezuelan power accuses him of economic sanctions, particularly from the United States, of being responsible for this situation. However, health NGOs say the transplant program began to show flaws as early as 2015.