He Was Told It Was a Job. It Was His Kidney They Wanted.

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“I think a lot of people could empathize with the fact that they were worried about their”

daughter. They wanted to save her life, but there is just such a callousness to the way they were speaking about sort of targeting young, poor, vulnerable men for their organs. I'm Phoebe Judge, and today I'm talking with journalist Alexis Okoho. She recently wrote a piece for the Guardian titled "The Body Snatchers" about organ trafficking

and an Nigerian politician who's now behind bars in the UK. Thanks very much for being here. Thanks for having me. So let's just start with you telling me a little bit about the family at the center of this story that Karimadu family, who are they?

Yeah, the Karimadu's are, and have been a well-known, well-regarded family in Nigeria. The father, E.K., is a famous, was a famous politician who was the long-running senator. His family was also very wealthy. Like many Nigerian politicians, he had homes in Nigeria, the UK, the UAE, and his children grew up in that lifestyle.

They went to boarding schools in the UK and lived a very nice life. In his daughter, Sonya, as you say, had spent a large portion of her life in the UK going to boarding schools.

“Well, when did the family learn that Sonya was sick?”

Sonya had graduated from university in the UK and then had gone on to start a master's degree. And early on in that time, she began to feel sick, she would have fainting spells, and so her family took her to the doctors, and they were told that she has a really severe form of kidney disease. And after a certain amount of valuations, they were told that she would either have to start

dialysis or have an immediate kidney transplant. And so she started dialysis, but dialysis is something that really can only be done for so long. The ultimate goal was that Sonya would need a new kidney. And what is the organ transplant system like in the UK?

Is there a list like there is here in the US where you get priority depending on the severity your age? Yes, it's similar, but also like the US, there's a long, often a long time to get it, especially because there is a lot of demand for not that much supply. And the thing is that Sonya actually is Nigerian, you know, she was in the UK for schooling,

but in Nigeria, the kidney transplant process was basically non-existent.

And so, you know, there's someone I talked to who said basically if you get kidney disease in Nigeria, which is quite prevalent in the country actually, it's a death sentence, because there's no real sort of transplant, you know, registry sort of system. Most Nigerians who get transplants have to do them abroad.

“How long did Sony anticipate that she would be waiting for a new kidney in the UK?”

Well, I'm not sure, you know, how long she thought she'd wait, but I know that the typical waiting period is around three years, I would say, from what I've read, but I know because of the severity of her disease, her family wanted a solution right away, because you just

Rather than waiting on the list, Sonya's family decided to take a different path. What did they decide to do?

“They decided to make a transplant happen as soon as possible, and to do that, they sought”

out someone they knew who had also gotten a transplant in the UK. Who was this man that they reached out to? So the man they reached out to, so I'll say, so E.K., the senator. He is very close with his brother named Dua, who's a doctor, Nigerian doctor. And once, and Dua had been involved in getting Sonya to the doctors in the UK, finding

out her diagnosis, and so once they learned they needed a transplant, Dua then reached out to his old medical school classmate, a guy named Obina Obeta. Obina Obeta is a Nigerian doctor who had kidney disease, but then the year before had gotten a successful kidney transplant at a hospital in the UK called the Royal Free, and seemed to be doing better.

“So Dua reached out to him and said, how did you do that?”

Where did Obina get his kidney from? So Obina had reached out to, and we're still not sure how he found this man, but he had reached out to a young man who worked in a market in Lagos, the commercial capital of Nigeria,

and had reached out to him with a proposition, basically saying that if this young man gave

him his kidney, he would get him to the UK, possibly pay him, and introduce him to a new life. So they're connected with Obina, and what does he offer to do for them? So Obina says, sure, I'll help for a fee, I'll help you find another young man, like the man who gave me my kidney.

How does he go about finding this kidney?

“So the young man who he reached out to, who I'll call a man, worked in a market in Lagos,”

as I said before, going to the UK to give his kidney. And while he had worked in that market in Lagos, he had friends, you know, other sellers, and one of those friends was a really young man named Daniel, or who I'm calling Daniel. And Daniel was 21 years old, had come from a village in southern Nigeria, come to work in the market, was selling cell phone accessories in a wheelbarrow, you know, was a sweet guy

who looked, you know, like a teenager, and Ben reached out to his old friend Daniel and said, hey, I have an opportunity for you. You know, I'm in the UK, Ben had sent Daniel and some other of their friends, videos of him dancing, having fun and London, and he says, hey, you're interested, do you want to come to London too?

And what did he offer him in, I mean, what was to get a job or did he mention, come here for a kidney transplant?

No, he basically implied that it was a job.

And so Daniel said, sure, of course, I'm interested. And then the next thing is that Daniel heard from Obena, and Obena said, Obena kept it pretty vague. He said that he had opportunity for him, again, a plan that it was a job that he would be like, Ben.

And he said, you just have to do a couple of things before we can get you the visa. And those things were medical tests. And so for the next, I don't know, because there are a couple of weeks, Daniel would travel to Abuse, the capital, to get various blood tests, medical tests, under the guise of him thinking, this was all for his visa to go to the UK.

Once he gets to England, he gets to the visa, he gets to England. What happens?

So he arrives, and he meets for the first time Obena face to face.

He's taken to Abina's house, where Obena lives with his wife and his children, his passport is taken away. He's given a spot to sleep in the living room. He starts doing chores around the house, and he's not really sure what's going on. He just knows it doesn't feel right, but he's still thinking, okay, let me see where

this goes. Ben told me that this is an opportunity, so I'm going to see what happens.

He but he doesn't know who they are, they just have lunch, they take a photo, and then

“shortly after that, Daniel's taken to the hospital for his first interview about the kidney”

transplant. So has anyone at this point said to him, you're actually here for when was kidney, the

word kidney first impression to him?

It's kind of remarkable how long it took, according to Daniel, for the word kidney to be mentioned, because he was in Nigeria, he took all these medical tests. We later discovered that on his visa application, it was written that, "Hi, my name is Sonso, I'm going to the UK to donate a kidney to Sonso, but he didn't know that, because he didn't compile his own visa application."

Then he gets to Obena's house, he's staying there, again, nothing is being said, according to him. Then he actually has lunch with Sonya and her mother and Obena, and he says later in testimony that Sonya and her mother seemed scared, but there was still no direct conversation about what was happening.

“They took a photo which we later learned was going to be used as proof that they somehow”

had a pre-existing relationship, but he was just sort of, you know, he was going along, he was this really a village boy, you know, and this big city just sort of, along for

the ride, and then finally we get to the hospital, and this is the time of his first interview

with the doctor who was in charge of Sonya's case at the Royal Free Hospital, and he goes in, and they've assigned him an interpreter who was this Nigerian secretary at the hospital, and we later learned that Nigerian secretary is also working with Obena, and Obena and the Karamadus to coach Daniel on what to say, but again, this is all being done with the Latino known what's happening, so basically during this first interview, when the

doctor starts talking about the transplant, as when Daniel is like, "Wait, what the hell's going? What's going on?" And he later says he started getting scared, he almost started crying, he was like, "Wait, wait, wait. I don't know anything about this."

The doctor later said, "Oh, well, you know, this was the first time he had ever heard

about the transplant," and he started trying to calm him down, saying, "No, like, don't worry. We're not going to do anything you don't want to do." After that first interview, Daniel speaks of Obena, asks, "How did it go?" And Daniel, I assume, says, "What are you talking?

“I'm why am I here?" and what does Obena say to him?”

Yes, Obena says, "Well, listen, we actually brought you here for this canny transplant. And if you go through with it, I'll pay you this nominal amount of money, you know, but just do it and you'll get paid." But now Daniel has said to the hospital, and during that first interview, I don't know what I'm here.

This is the first time hearing of this. The hospital is aware, maybe that something's going on. A few weeks later, the hospital kind of makes it a siding factor and says, "No, there's something fishy. This is coercion.

We're not going to let this transplant happen." But Daniel is still in the UK living with Obena. Exactly. You know, because after that first interview, I don't know if it was delusion or what, but they at Caramados and Obena still thought maybe they could salvage this.

So they were keeping Daniel around because there was actually a second interview. But, you know, as I learned, even before that second interview, the first doctor, had told his colleague, "This is just a formality. This isn't going to happen." You know, he just, you know, he seems like he's being coerced.

So once the royal free hospital says this is not happening, Daniel still at Obena's house and someone comes to examine him there and says, "You're still going to have a transplant. But we'll go back to Nigeria if we can't get it done here, we'll just get it done in Nigeria." Yes. So right after they receive the decision that the transplant won't be happening at the

royal free hospital in London, Obena has a doctor, friend, and someone else come over in examine. Daniel, I think they're trying to figure out because there's something physically wrong

I'm not sure if they were really told why the transplant is not happening, so they wanted to examine him to see if he was still fit to be considered elsewhere as a donor. So as they were doing that, you know, Daniel later said, "I was shocked. I thought this was over. Now they're still trying to see if I could be suitable and they're talking about doing

in Nigeria. Where some transplants do happen." And then after that examination, Obena says, Daniel, here's a return ticket. You're going to go back to Nigeria on this day and we'll see what happens there. And, you know, Daniel's frightened, he's thinking, "I can't go back."

And I'm sure he's thinking that for various reasons, "A, I can't go through with a transplant." And also, he had sold all of his business, you know, and Legos, he had left his life there. And so he was, you know, feeling confused and upset over these two things.

“So, he goes to the airport to get on the flight back and what happens?”

He goes back with a family friend of Obena's who asked where it's from to the airport. And when there, he realizes he can't go. So he flees. He leaves the airport, he only has, you know, less than 30 pounds in cash, his a phone, some air pods.

He walks for a couple of days, he's sleeping outside. He runs into a friendly, stranger on the street who lets him come into his flat and take a hot shower and have some food, and then he eventually ends up at the police station. We'll be right back to listen without ads, join criminal plus at patreon.com/criminal. Support for criminal comes from growth therapy.

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“When Daniel goes to the police in London, what does he tell them?”

We tell them a story. He says that he tells them he's only 15, which he did look 15. He tells them that he's homeless, that he had been brought to the UK by someone who's abandoned him.

He basically tells them this fictional story because he was afraid of being sent back to Nigeria.

He wanted to pay himself as this vulnerable kid who needed help, which in a sense he was. They later get the real story out of him, but they then placed him in protective custody because his life really was a threat from the people who had brought him to the UK and and from the current models who have a lot of power and influence. At the meantime, the current models have given up on Daniel for now, or this is probably

not going to happen, and they are starting to make new plans. And the new plan is we'll find a kidney in Turkey. At this point, they care a lot of their desperate because this was supposed to be a sure thing. Just the prior obina had gotten his transplant at the same hospital with someone who was

So they're reaching out to contacts where else can we go?

They're talking to doctors in Turkey, which is actually a very popular spot for organ transplants. And they're also searching for new donors. And so at one point, EK sends photos of young men to the family group chat of which Sonya is a member and says, "Here's some new potential donors."

“And Sonya responds and says, "Oh, I think the light skin one looks better than the dark”

skin one." He looks like he won't run away. And they all laugh about it. And EK's reassuring Sonya, "Oh, don't worry.

We had one messed up, but we'll get this done."

Obviously, I think a lot of people can empathize with the fact that they were worried about their daughter. They wanted to save her life. But there is just such a callousness to the way they were speaking about sort of targeting young poor vulnerable men for their organs.

And then they're arrested. Tell me about where that happened. So EK and his wife, Beatrice, were traveling from Turkey to London. They've started in Nigeria, stopped off in Turkey.

I can imagine sort of talk about transplant potentials.

And then as soon as they landed a Heathrow, they were arrested. They had more than 30,000 pounds in cash on them. And they were both taken into custody. That same day their daughter was arrested at their UK home. What were they charged with?

They were charged with conspiracy to unparasing, but conspiracy to convey organ trafficking. And so was it Bina who was arrested about a month later at his home in the UK. How big of a deal was this story in Nigeria?

“I mean, the Kermado name, EK's big politician, was this all over?”

This was all over because this was almost unprecedented. And Nigerian politician of his dad's share of his reputation being arrested. It just doesn't happen in Nigeria or abroad. It was on TV news. It was headlines of newspapers.

It was covered social media. It was constantly trending on every WhatsApp conversation across the diaspora. I actually found out about the story because my parents had been discussing it on their WhatsApp chats with friends in Nigeria. And they were like, Alexis, have you heard about this senator who was arrested for organ

trafficking? And I had it.

“And you know, it was shocking because you know, it was still, it was the first time that”

anyone had been arrested in the UK for organ trafficking. It's still as the only time. And it was a huge deal. All four go on trial in London in 2023 and all pleaded not guilty. What happened at the trial?

The trials were very revealing on a lot of different fronts. With EK and Beatrice, it was revealing because despite face with all the evidence, they still saw themselves as the victims. They were, they kept saying, this is not who we are. And they kept saying that they felt they had been tricked by Daniel because he had just

wanted to use them to come to the UK. You know, completely ignoring sort of like his own story of not knowing what was happening and the exploitation that he was facing. And then it was also revealing to see that, you know, just learn more about what Obina Betta had done before he even got connected with EK.

The fact that your prior to the attempt to transplant with Daniel, he had gotten a young man from the same market, gotten him to the UK, pretended that he was a relative successfully tricked a UK hospital into performing this procedure and then had stayed on the UK, you know, it's sort of, you know, as undocumented immigrants with his family, overstate his medical visa and was just sort of working off the books, you know, it was remarkable

your prior, they had gone through and it kind of just illustrated, this is a huge issue

that is really often not caught.

“What evidence did prosecutors present against the Ecaramados?”

So they had quite a bit beyond Daniel's testimony, they also had electronic communications. So they had tons of WhatsApp messages from EK to Deway, his brother from Deway to Abina who was the middle man and, you know, just talking about fees, talking about bribeing the Nigerian medical secretary at the hospital so that she would help them, talking about, you know,

compelling Daniels who do various things.

Hopefully their whole operation was laid out in WhatsApp and O'Bina did admit to a lot of it as well even though EK and Beatrice, you know, were sort of denying it and Sonya,

“you know, Sonya was later found on guilty but she did admit to, you know, it was very”

hard for them to deny what was in these messages and it was very hard for them to deny, you know, the testimony of the doctors at the British hospital who said, you know, this is what we were told, these end them being lies and, you know, that was the, those were the facts. EK Beatrice and O'Bina are convicted, Sonya is not. What were their sentences? So EK

was convicted to almost 10 years. Beatrice to a little bit less than half that, and O'Bina about to about 10 years as well and actually Beatrice has just completed as the beginning of this year at the custodial part of her sentence and she was released back to Nigeria. And EK's lawyers tried to get him extradited or tried to get him released back to Nigeria to serve the rest of the sentence there. This was at the end of last year and the UK denied

it because, you know, they just according to sources, they knew he would be released as soon

“as he was sent back there. And what happened to Daniel, the man who had been lord over?”

So Daniel, Daniel's interesting story. So Daniel is still under protective court order in the UK, which is quite serious because he cannot be named. His identity is kept anonymous and technically I and other journalists and other people are not allowed to try to reach him, which is very serious. But I wanted to still find out who he was. And so I went to Nigeria and I talked to his friends and family. And one of his best friends had heard from him

a little bit while this saga was happening. But then as soon as the police put him into custody, they didn't hear from him for over two years. I want to say. And then last year, his father became sick in his village and he called his family and friends there. They let him know what's happening. He gave a little bit of update on his life. He said he was doing okay, that he was

finally in school, which is what he had always wanted. He was studying, he was doing well. He was

sad about his father and wanted to help, but he said it wasn't safe for him to come back. And so towards later last year, his father died, his family and friends talked to him again and let him know the news. And Daniel was really upset, but he told him that, you know, he was doing okay. He was studying and he was happy to be able to do that. So, Nya, Karimadu spoke with the BBC. What did she say about what happened? He and I was interested in interview because she had a lot of emotion, obviously, for

her parents. She said she felt guilty that they had to go to these extreme lengths to find a donor for her and that they were now in prison because of it. She also said that she didn't really feel much about Daniel in general. She was sort of vaguely sorry for him, but she didn't really think about, you know, sort of think about him or have regard for him. And I think that kind of

focused on trying to help her. They didn't really care about anyone else, they didn't care about,

“you know, the vulnerable people they wanted to exploit. I mean, even during, you know,”

EK's trial, he was implying that Daniel, you know, even though he was a market trader, he can make a lot of money with that, which is simply not true. You know, he made such a small pension so money. And so, yeah, again, there was just a feeling of sort of callousness. Has she gotten a kidney transplant? As far as I can tell, I don't believe she has.

“You mentioned this earlier that this is not a story and a vacuum that this happens”

all the time organ trafficking. How common is it? Well, based on estimates, I mean,

it's believed to be happening in over 50 countries at least. And that at least 10 percent,

but probably more of transplants are taking place, you know, through tourism, through people, A getting transplants elsewhere, but then also potentially pain people. You know, you know, one thing that wasn't in the story that I was looking into was that in Nigeria, there is a thriving black market for organs for kidneys, especially, where sort of desperate people are not necessarily, you know, being tricked into it,

but are selling their kidneys. And Nigeria has sort of attempted to charge some people, doctors, hospital administrators, with allowing these transplants to take place,

but the trials never really go anywhere. And so it's really rampant. And then, you know,

obviously in the UK as well, this is still the only organ trafficking case. When we know there's so many more transplants must be taking place there in a similar vein. And so,

“I think a lot of us to do with the fact that the people who are getting these transplants”

have the money, have the influence and the power, not to be prosecuted for it. You can read Alexis's full piece about the story for the Guardian at the link in our show notes. Alexis, thank you very much. That's journalist Alexis Okawa. All of these conversations that we release on Tuesdays are also available to watch on our YouTube channel at youtube.com/criminalpodcast

while you're there. You can also check out the back catalog of our regular criminal episodes. Find clips of me and criminal co-creator Lauren Spore, making our other show, please continue, and more. The link is in our show notes. I'm Phoebe Judge. Thanks for listening.