First US Conviction for Organ Trafficking

Was an Israeli citizen who was also a rabbi the first person in the

United States to be convicted of trafficking human organs for

profit? The answer, of course, is yes.

In 2009, federal agents in New Jersey arrested

Levi Rosenbaum, an Israeli citizen living in Brooklyn,

New York. He became the first person to ever be

convicted of the sale of bodily organs within the

United States. Rosenbaum admitted to brokering three

illegal kidney transplants between 2006 and

2009. Desperate patients in New Jersey paid him

between one

hundred and twenty thousand dollars and one hundred and fifty thousand dollars

for each kidney. He found donors in Israel through

newspaper

ads and paid them far less, sometimes as little as ten thousand

dollars. However, there are rumors that some of the organs may have

come from Palestinians. To get the surgeries approved at

American hospitals, he helped create cover stories claiming

the

donors and recipients were relatives.

He was caught when he tried to arrange a fourth deal with an undercover

FBI informant posing as a buyer. The case was part of a

larger New Jersey corruption investigation.

In October 2011, Rosenbaum pleaded guilty to three

counts of transferring human organs for money.

He also pled guilty to one count of conspiracy.

As a result, in July 2012, a federal judge

sentenced him to only two and a half years in prison

for selling human body parts. Prosecutors called his

operation a black market that let the wealthy buy life-saving body

parts from the poor and desperate.

While Rosenbaum insisted he was trying to help people, this

remains the first and still the most prominent federal

conviction for

organ trafficking in American history, but only resulted in two

years in prison.