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The wealthy mayor of a Lebanese town has been arrested in Spain over allegations he offered to pay poor migrants 40,000 euros (£33,500) for a liver transplant.
The 61-year-old was arrested in January at Manises Airport, Valencia, and is on bail in the country facing preliminary charges of alleged organ trafficking.
Authorities would not release his name, nor those of his alleged accomplices, because the suspects were the subjects of an ongoing court investigation.
'The main message is that no country is totally free of this problem, so that everybody should be alert,'
'Organ trafficking is more or less like slaves of some centuries ago. It's the way some people really control other people. It's exploitation of human beings.'
Police say the mayor enlisted four alleged accomplices - three Lebanese and a Palestinian - who recruited nine poor people to have liver compatibility tests at a clinic in Valencia last summer.
Just one, a Romanian immigrant, proved to be a match. But when he went with the Lebanese mayor to a Barcelona transplant clinic, medical workers blocked the procedure, police said.
Spanish rules stipulate that organs must only be donated for altruistic reasons by donors who are family members or close friends of the recipient.
Hospital staff quickly discovered that the Lebanese mayor did not have that kind of relationship with his Romanian donor.
The mayor eventually got his liver transplant using tissue donated by his son, who had earlier been turned down after tests in Lebanon where medics had told him he was too young.
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