Dr Amit Kumar hiding in Nepal

Kidney racket kingpin Amit Kumar is in Nepal and the police there are close to arresting him. The police have also unearthed a local illegal transplant ring.

“We are hoping to arrest him soon,” Upendra Aryal, SSP, Kathmandu Metropolitan Police Crime Division, told the Hindustan Times. He added that the hotels he had been staying in have been identified. The police found a match of his passport number and the entries in the hotels he checked into. They also said that Kumar had received calls from three local mobile numbers.

Investigators in India have suspected for a while that Kumar may have fled the country and that Nepal would be his likely destination as he had business links in that country — basically kidney transplant deals.

Kumar is the mastermind behind an international racket in illegal kidney transplants which has been operating for many years. He is accused of having forced or duped around 500 people into their donating kidneys.

Kumar’s family relocated to Canada many years ago and he is reported to have told his neighbours there that he was in the process of winding up his business in India. Hindustan Times has reported exclusively on his house in Canada.

It is possible that Kumar is in Nepal looking for ways to join his family in Canada or just disappear till the heat is off. But the police in Nepal are now on his trail, and are very, very close.

In fact, it could be a coincidence that the police there have also uncovered a kidney racked in the last few weeks, arresting 12 persons. The kingpin of that racket is a man called Deepak Lama. He is absconding.

The police said they are trying to find out if Lama had any links with Kumar’s operations. “Lama organised donors and sent them to India…,” a police officer said, adding, “…mostly to Chennai for transplants.”