photo courtesy of al jazeera image:29770:0::0

The police raided a house in a suburb of Lahore, Pakistan after a man escaped and reported the kidney scam to police.

Police found ten people held hostage in the house; four of them had already had one of their kidneys removed.

Lahore chief of police Malik Mohammad Iqbal said: "These poor people were given tranquilizers and were deprived of their kidneys without their consent."

Mohammad Arif, the man who made an escape, told Reuters: "They promised me a job but instead brought me to a house where I was kept for about 15 days with the other people before I ran away."

All of the people in the house were abducted and held against their will. No one was a "volunteer" donor.

The doctors involved, who worked at two private hospitals, were arrested later and charged with violating a ban on organ trading.

Iqbad said:

"The doctors have been arrested on charges that these operations were carried out in their hospitals without the consent of the people. The investigation will reveal how far they were involved in this heinous crime."

Hundreds of wealthy foreigners come to Pakistan each year to buy kidneys from live, poor "donors." This organ trading business is thought to be worth millions of dollars.

Currently, Pakistan does not have any legislation to govern the trade in organs; however, a law aimed at stopping the sale of organs is going through parliament.

What a horrifying scenario. I used to believe that the story of people being drugged and having their kidneys stolen was only an urban legend. Did it start out as an urban legend, or was it always real? This is a gruesome way that the rich devour the poor.