You may have heard a variation or two of the chilling story where a man on a business trip goes to a local bar for a drink and notices the pretty girl staring back at him from across the bar. He approaches the lady and asks if he can buy her a drink. That’s the last thing he remembers before waking up naked and freezing in a seedy looking bathroom. He looks around and notices that he is sprawled out in a bathtub filled with ice. With a searing pain in his side, he twists his body to inspect his back and thigh area. He doesn’t scream out until he sees the crude stitches along his body and realizes he has been the victim of a kidney theft.Up until recently, this was nothing more than an urban legend. There was no substantiating evidence to support the theory that organ thefts and black market sales actually occur. But now proof of an underground organ trafficking ring has been exposed, operating within our own borders. The nightmare has become a reality.                 Several political figures and religious leaders have been arrested for importing and selling human organs. The ring involved many high ranking individuals within the New Jersey community. According to Interpol, the group allegedly kidnapped children in Algeria, harvested the children’s organs and then smuggled them into the United States, where they were sold for anywhere from $20,000 to  $100,000. Other sources indicate that the organs were sold for upwards of $120,000.American law enforcement agencies arrested a total of forty-five individuals; among them were several rabbis and mayors, including Levi Rosenbaum, along with other government and religious officials. They were charged with money laundering and conducting trade of human organs. But this isn’t by any means an isolated case.The Chinese government regularly takes organs from executed inmates, often times without obtaining the consent of the prisoners. Human rights activists argue that the Chinese judicial system is being twisted for the sole purpose of putting as many people on death row as possible so that they can harvest and sell their organs, without giving these suspects proper time or means to defend themselves.The Chinese government refuses to release any statistics on its use of the death penalty. However, Amnesty International has noted a dramatic increase in China’s implementation of the death penalty since the early 1990s, which is the same time it is believed that China began harvesting organs from executed inmates. According to Human Rights Watch’s 1994 report, the demand for organs in China resulted in hurried executions of prisoners whose guilt was not clearly determined.                  India has also exposed several organ theft rings operating within their borders over the last few years, involving doctors stealing organs from local peasants. Amit Kumar was arrested in 2008 for running an organization in Nepal that stole over 500 kidneys from individuals at gun point over 10 years.A report published in the Swedish newspaper,Aftonbladet, alleged that Israeli soldiers were kidnapping and murdering Palestinians for the purposes of harvesting their organs. The Israeli government denied the accusations at first but later admitted to harvesting organs from deceased individuals after an American anthropologist published an interview with Dr. Jehuda Hiss, who previously ran the Israeli Forensic Institute. Doctor Hiss admitted that various organs were harvested, including bones, arteries, and corneas from militants but maintains that the donors were all deceased. The Israeli government contends that they discontinued these practices over 12 years ago.More disturbingly, there have been rumors circulating for years that Mexicans kidnapped and murdered along the U.S. border had their organs stolen and transplanted into U.S. citizens, but no proof of that has surfaced. Dr. Velzen was just banned from working anywhere in Britain after authorities discovered that he stole hundreds of organs from children’s bodies post mortem, leaving their corpses nothing but empty shells.                                                      According to CBS News, it is estimated that one-fourth of the organs transplanted throughout the world have been trafficked illegally.Many individuals might be surprised that such a heinous activity can occur on more than an isolated basis in the United States. But as history indicates, when there is a demand, someone will find a way to provide that product, regardless of the opposition they face. We’ve learned this lesson the hard way with our government’s infamous “War on Drugs’. By many accounts our streets are still flooded with drugs, perhaps more than ever. Without a doubt, there is a demand for kidneys and other organs; 4,540 people died in the United States alone while waiting for a kidney transplant in 2010. Creating a market where those with means can buy their way back to health, and those too poor to do so are left to die, is simply unacceptable. I would argue that organ theft is one of the most horrendous human rights violations imaginable.