Islamabad, Aug 23 — Pakistan's organ trafficking is not merely a domestic crime but a transnational trade that feeds international demand, while also exposing the grim reality of poverty, regulatory failures and medical malpractices that prevail in the country, a report has stated.
A June case in Islamabad, involving the alleged export of placenta to Vietnam, has highlighted the transnational nature of the trade, while earlier reports of transplant tourism pointed to foreign patients travelling to Pakistan to obtain organs through illicit arrangements, according to the report.
"That cross-border dimension brings together local facilitators, foreign recipients, cash payments and falsified health documentation. The trade follows profit wherever oversight is weakest. When the clientele spans multiple countries, the supply chain stretches beyond one jurisdiction, making the abuse harder to detect and interrupt. Pakistan's current problem is therefore not the absence of headline arrests. It is the lack of durable suppression after each raid," a report in 'Pakistan Observer' detailed.
According to the report, Pakistan's illegal organ trade has once again exposed a grim reality -- poverty, regulatory failures and medical malpractice can turn vulnerable people into "commodities" in a criminal economy.
Recent raids and arrests suggest that the illicit trade remains deeply entrenched, operating through neighbourhood networks, private clinics and poorly regulated spaces.
"Organ trafficking in Pakistan has evolved beyond hidden backstreet deals. Investigators have linked recent operations to organised networks involving brokers, medical professionals and facilitators, with transplant activity allegedly carried out through forged paperwork, bypassed approvals and carefully structured financial arrangements," the Pakistan Observer stated.
The report noted that in June 2026, the Federal Investigation Agency's (FIA) Anti-Corruption Circle arrested two suspected recruiters for allegedly luring brick kiln workers, daily wage earners and other economically vulnerable people in Pakistan into illegal kidney transplant procedures.
The arrests followed an earlier operation in Islamabad, where the same investigation had resulted in the arrest of a doctor and several members of his medical team.
"Officials said the network may have handled around 187 illegal kidney transplants. Recipients were allegedly charged between $21,500 (PKR 6 million) and $36,000 (PKR 10 million) for each procedure, while donors received only a small fraction of the money. These figures reveal the harsh imbalance at the heart of the trade: the affluent pay for survival, while the poor risk their health for money," Pakistan Observer mentioned.
In another operation this year, on June 25, it said, the FIA arrested five suspects in Islamabad, including three Chinese nationals and two Pakistanis, for their alleged involvement in the illegal trade in human organs.
Officials said the raid also led to the recovery of fresh, dried and processed human placenta, which investigators suspect was sourced from hospitals in Peshawar, Rawalpindi and Lahore.
"The placenta was allegedly mislabelled and shipped abroad as sheep organs, with Vietnam identified as a destination. The case widened the picture of the trade. It was not limited to kidney harvesting or local transplant scams, but also involved the alleged collection, processing and export of human biological material through hospital-linked channels. This detail shows how adaptable the market becomes when demand, profit and weak enforcement meet," the report detailed.