Ex-Japan NPO Exec, 2 Others Arrested over Organ Transplant Abroad

Tokyo, July 7 (Jiji Press)–Japanese police arrested three people Tuesday, including a former executive of a now-defunct nonprofit organization that supported patients of incurable diseases, on suspicion of illegally brokering an overseas organ transplant case for fees. The three were arrested by a joint investigation team of Tokyo’s Metropolitan Police Department and the police departments of Aichi Prefecture, central Japan, and the western prefecture of Hyogo for suspected violations of Japan’s organ transplant law. It was the first time for Japanese police to take action against suspected organ transplant mediation for fees, according to the MPD. The investigation team did not disclose whether the suspects admitted to the allegations against them. The former NPO official, Hiromichi Kikuchi, 66, a resident of Yokohama, the capital of Kanagawa Prefecture, south of Tokyo, was arrested by the MPD in 2023 on suspicion of mediating an organ transplant case abroad without permission in 2022 when he was serving in the organization post. He is believed to have engaged in the latest paid mediation case while out on bail. Kikuchi was later sentenced to eight months in jail over the 2022 case and has been serving his sentence since January this year. The NPO was dissolved the same month. The other two suspects are Takaki Ando from Tokyo’s Setagaya Ward, the 66-year-old head of a Tokyo organization effectively run by Kikuchi, and Kikuchi’s first son, Mitsuru, 42, a company employee from Yokohama. The three are alleged to have lured patients by stating on a website that “opportunities to undergo organ transplants in Japan are extremely limited while transplant surgeries are routinely performed overseas.” Between November 2025 and January this year, they are suspected of arranging organ transplant surgery abroad for a man in his 70s from Tokyo and receiving brokerage fees by having the man remit 12.36 million yen in total under the guise of an administrative fee and payments to a surgeon. According to the MPD, most of the money received was used to repay Kikuchi’s debts. A medical institution in the city of Osaka, western Japan, cooperated with the three suspects by giving medical treatment to the Tokyo man and prepare referral documents. The patient traveled to Cambodia with Kikuchi’s first son in January and underwent kidney transplant surgery. A Chinese coordinator assisted the man during his stay in Cambodia, and the surgery was performed by a Chinese physician. The male patient paid 157,500 dollars in medical and other fees to the coordinator. “I could not find a (kidney) donor in Japan,” he told police during voluntary questioning. The joint police team will continue its investigations, suspecting that Kikuchi and the other two arrestees also mediated organ transplants for several other patients for fees. The police will also conduct probes on the head of the Osaka medical institution and the Tokyo man who underwent the kidney transplant for their possible violations of the organ transplant law. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]