The arrests of three people in Venezuela for Facebook Marketplace posts in which they allegedly offered kidneys for sale have raised questions about the illegal organ trade in a country with a thriving online black market for medical products.
Reports of the posts were first published in mid-April, when news outlet El Pitazo and a local journalist flagged them in several Venezuelan states, including Falcón, Lara, Bolívar and Vargas. Prices for the organs ranged from $20,000 to $100,000, according to the review of the posts. One post offered the kidney of a 15-year-old girl “in perfect condition.”
Three people were later arrested in connection to the posts. Venezuela’s chief prosecutor Tarek William Saab announced the April 17 arrest of a woman in Caracas who was suspected of being behind the post about the 15-year-old girl.
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Days later, a 41-year-old man and a 16-year-old girl were arrested in Bolívar state for attempting to market organs.
When InSight Crime contacted Meta, the parent company of Facebook, about the posts, a spokesperson said that the content had been removed and that the company uses a combination of people, artificial intelligence and user reports to combat such abuses on its platforms.
Posts involving organ trafficking in Latin America have appeared on Facebook’s platforms in the past. A Mexico public Facebook group…
