Another broker held in Namakkal kidney racket case

Namakkal (Tamil Nadu), Dec 19 (PTI) A man suspected to be involved in the kidney sale racket was arrested by the SIT in Pallipalayam on Friday, police sources said.

The man, identified as Karthikeyan, is suspected to be a middleman in the case. He is a resident of Erode district. SIT has already arrested four more middlemen.

In Namakkal district of Tamil Nadu, a kidney‑sale racket emerged in mid‑2025, where brokers allegedly targeted poor powerloom and textile workers -- many of them women -- and funnelled their kidneys to private hospitals using forged documents and fake "relative donor" claims.

It was alleged that the middlemen in areas like Pallipalayam and nearby Namakkal localities approached daily‑wage and powerloom workers, promising Rs 5–10 lakh for a kidney.

Victims have also alleged that surgeries took place in private hospitals in Perambalur, Tiruchirappalli and Erode, with forged identity/relationship documents used to clear transplantation as 'altruistic' donations.

The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court pulled up the state government, noting that a kidney racket was "thriving" in Namakkal and directed the formation of a special team of expert doctors and an SIT‑type mechanism to monitor organ transplantation procedures.

Police formed an SIT team led by Coimbatore Superintendent of Police (SP) K Karthikeyan and Madurai SP B K Arvind. It launched a state-wide probe and has since detained four middlemen. PTI JR JR ADB