Kidney transplant racket: ED's decision to seek Aussie help to attach Amit Kumar’s property upheld

NEW DELHI: In a move which has come a shot in the arm for the Enforcement Directorate, a PMLA adjudicating authority has upheld its decision to seek Australian government's help to provisionally attach the property acquired in Melbourne by Amit Kumar, aka Santosh Rameshwar Raut, the brain behind an extensive illegal kidney transplantation racket who was arrested by the Nepalese police in February, 2008.

The three-member adjudicating authority headed by PK Mishra, after examining the documents supplied by the ED and hearing its arguments, endorsed its action. "In view of the foregoing fact and circumstances, we have no hesitation in coming to the conclusion that Kumar, with the aid and abetment of his accomplices, had committed the scheduled offences, laundered the proceeds in properties in Australia, which is under provisional attachment. As this property is involved in money laundering, we confirm its attachment," the authority said.

Armed with the adjudicating authority's order, the ED is now planning to send a second Letter Rogatory to Australia for the formal attachment of the property, which was purchased by Kumar in 2005. Its total cost was estimated at Australian $6.67 lakh. Kumar paid this amount in instalments, out of the income earned from the illegal kidney transplants conducted by him in his Gurgaon hospital, which was also found to be illegal, over a period of time.

Kumar was subsequently handed over to the Indian authorities, and he is presently lodged in the Ambala jail, alongwith his accomplices Upendra Kumar Dublesh, Jeevan Kumar, Kishan Kumar Agarwal, Manoj Kumar, Saroj Kumar Kovind, Linda, Jagdish and Gyasuddin.

The CBI had re-registered case against them in April, 2008, under section 173 of CrPC, 1973 for violating section 120-B, read with sections 326, 342, 417, 465, 473, 307 and 506 of the IPC, 1860, and sections 18, 19 and 20 of the Transplantation of Human Organs Act, 1994.

The ED swing into action after it was found that Amit Kumar had laundered large chunks of his ill-gotten money abroad, particularly in Australia and Canada, and had used them to acquire properties. Kumar's wife, Poonam and their two sons have fled to Canada.

The ED too had in May, 2008, registered a case against Kumar and his co-accused as crime committed under section 307 of the IPC, 1860 and sections 18, 19 and 20 of the TOHO Act, 1994 were found to be scheduled offences under paragraphs 1 and 12 of PMLA, 2002.

Investigations conducted by the CBI in the case led its sleuths to establish that Kumar had entered into a criminal conspiracy with the co-accused to lure many innocent people, most of whom came from a very humble background, to their hospital and fraudulently removed their kidneys through surgical interventions, and planted them in the bodies of others after taking huge amounts of money from the recipients.

Kumar, it was discovered, used to charge Rs 6-8 lakh in cash from the Indian recipients, and US $ 25,000-30,000 from foreign nationals. The Medical Council of India, after going through its records, had confirmed that Amit Kumar and his brother, Jeevan, were not even qualified surgeons. They were shown to be quacks.

The ED had in 2009 sought the Karkardooma-based special PMLA court's nod for issuing a LR to Australia under section 57 of the Act for obtaining information and documents pertaining to property No 5, Grand Ridge, Sunbury, Australia. Acting on the LR, the Australian Federal Police subsequently seized the property on June 30 last year.