Blood Bones and Organs: The

Gruesome Red Market

Research by investigative journalist: Scott Carney

Journalist Scott Carney estimates that he is worth roughly $250,000

This number is not based on his savings or assets

Rather it is what he believes his body would sell for if it was broken down into individual parts on what he calls the “red market”

The Flesh Bazaar

It is assumed that the illegal buying and selling of organs is worth billions of dollars.

This market of organs ranges from kidneys, hearts, cornea’s, hair, etc….

The buying and selling of organs is against the law in almost every country, but Carney says the market has managed to grow thanks to the dire situations many of its donors find themselves in.

Kidneyville

As part of his research, Carney visited an Indian refugee camp for survivors of 2004's massive tsunami. Today, the camp is known by the nickname Kidneyvakkam, or Kidneyville, because of how common it is for the women who live there to sell their kidneys.

"The women are just lined up," Carney says. "They have their exposed midriffs and there are all these kidney extraction scars because when the tsunami happened, all these organ brokers came in and realized there were a lot of people in very desperate situations and they could turn a lot of quick cash by just convincing people to sell their kidneys."

In one Indian refugee camp, so many women have sold their kidneys that the camp has earned the nickname Kidneyville.

When you're at your most desperate place is when the brokers come in," Carney says. "One of these women, her name was Rani, gave up a kidney because her daughter had actually tried to commit suicide because she was in a very difficult marriage ... In order to treat her, the hospital needed a certain amount of cash — I think it was about $1,000 — and [Rani] didn't have any money so she did the only thing she could, which was to sell her kidney because an organ broker just sort of approached her very quickly. And that's a pretty common situation. "

Locals say this building in Kolkata, India, was once the center of the Indian black market bone trade. They say workers once dried human bones on the roof and cleaned corpses inside