Japan Arrests 3 Over Alleged Cambodia Organ Transplant Brokerage Involving Chinese Physician

Police in Tokyo arrested three people on Monday, July 7, on suspicion of illegally brokering a paid organ transplant in Cambodia, where the kidney transplant was performed by a Chinese physician.

The arrests were made by a joint investigation team from the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) and police departments in Aichi and Hyogo prefectures under Japan’s 1997 Organ Transplant Law, The Japan Times reported.

The case centers on Hiromichi Kikuchi, 66, a former nonprofit organization official who is already serving an eight-month prison sentence imposed in January for brokering illegal organ transplants in Belarus in 2022. According to Kyodo News, Kikuchi established a nonprofit organization in March 2024 while out on bail.

Also arrested were his son, Mitsuru Kikuchi, 42, and the organization’s director, Takaki Ando, 66. Police allege the three arranged for a Tokyo man in his 70s to receive a kidney transplant from a living donor at a medical facility in Cambodia.

According to investigators, the trio charged the patient 12 million yen (about $74,100) in medical fees and brokerage commissions. The money was allegedly intended to help repay Hiromichi Kikuchi’s debts, the MPD said.

How the operation worked

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According to The Japan Times, the group attracted prospective patients through a website stating that “opportunities to undergo organ transplants in Japan are extremely limited, while transplant surgeries are routinely performed overseas.”

Organ trafficking has become a major concern in recent decades, with human rights organizations pointing at the role of the Communist Chinese regime in establishing a massive transplant industry that relies on the murder of political prisoners as unwilling donors.

Many recipients of organs allegedly harvested from such donors are foreigners, including Japanese. In 2022, Ushio Sugaware, a former Yakuza member told The Epoch Times that he had witnessed the murder of a prisoner for his organs in 2007 at the General Hospital of the Armed Police Forces in Beijing.

A doctor had told Sugawara that the 21-year-old prisoner was an adherent of the persecuted Chinese spiritual practice Falun Gong.

Investigators said the operation received support from a medical institution in Osaka, which treated the Tokyo patient, conducted blood tests and other medical examinations, and prepared referral documents before the overseas procedure.

The suspects also asked the director of the Osaka medical facility to prepare a referral letter for the Cambodian hospital, according to Japan’s public broadcaster NHK. The facility director was reportedly paid for writing the document.

Kikuchi’s first son accompanied the Tokyo patient on his trip to Cambodia for the kidney transplant surgery. They were assisted by a Chinese coordinator and the surgery was performed by a Chinese physician in January.

“I could not find a (kidney) donor in Japan,” the Tokyo man told the police during questioning.

Japan’s Organ Transplant Law prohibits any kind of an economical gain for organ donation or mediation. SBS News reported that violations in these cases are indictable by up to five years in prison or a fine of up to 5 million yen ($34,000-35,000).

Leo Timm contributed to this report.