by Geekosystem on MashableGeekosystem is a Mashable publishing partner that aims to unite all the tribes of geekdom under one common banner. This article is reprinted with the publisher's permission.
When people say something costs “an arm and a leg,” they usually aren’t serious. After all, doesn’t it make more sense to do business in internal organs? You might say no, but others say yes, like the five people who are in trouble with the law after they assisted a Chinese teenager who sold one of his kidneys to raise the money for a new iPhone and an iPad 2.
The recently charged include the doctor, staff, and other accomplices who paid the boy $3,500 for the organ, and kept the other $35,000 profit from its sale for themselves.
The teenager in question, a 17-year-old named Wang, is now one kidney short and a bit worse for the wear. He sold the kidney in April of 2011, and now he’s suffering from progressively worsening kidney failure. He did get his iDevices though, so the ploy worked. He even managed to keep it a secret from his mother until she asked how he’d paid. Apparently he’s not a very good liar.
Criminal charges are being brought against the surgical staff considering that the sale of human organs is illegal in China and has been since 2007. Yes, 2007. In 2006, this whole thing might have been shifty, in poor taste, and more than a little unfair, but also legal.
Meanwhile, Wang must really be hurting between the progressive kidney failure, the the release of the new iPad and iPhone 4S.
[via Wired]
Image courtesy of iStockphoto, TommL
This article originally published at Geekosystem here.
