Kidneygate: What the Netcare bosses really knew
On May 27 four Durban surgeons are due to stand trial for their part in South Africa's kidney trafficking scandal, but evidence in the Mail & Guardian's possession suggests that top Netcare executives are fortunate not to be standing beside them.
"Kidneygate" is the long-running saga of how - between about 2000 and 2003 - about 200 Israeli patients with kidney disease were brought to South Africa to receive organs from living donors who were presented as their relatives.
The donors were in fact poor Brazilians, Israelis and Romanians who were recruited by international organ traffickers and paid a relatively modest sum to give up a precious kidney - a criminal offence under South African law. Read on.