Chapter 969: Herb Hall

There was always a legend circulating in the Third Hospital.

As long as a patient with uremia could afford it, he could find a matching kidney at the Herb Hall.

Lu Chuan had already brought people to completely surround the entire Herb Hall, with twenty to thirty police officers arresting all the more than a dozen staff members inside.

However, coincidentally, the Boss of Herb Hall was not there.

"He just left, we don’t know where he went."

The people who were arrested saw so many policemen come in and didn’t resist at all, so they quickly told everything they knew.

"I... I know..."

Among those arrested, there was a person squatting on the ground stammering.

Lu Chuan quickly went over.

From the current situation, it appeared that the Boss of the Herb Hall was one of the key figures.

The Boss of the Herb Hall was named Zhang Meng, who was originally a doctor in the USA.

But he was not a chief surgeon, nor an internal medicine doctor, but a procurement doctor in the medicine department.

Ten years ago, Zhang Meng resigned from the USA and came to Haizhou City to make a living, initially just selling some smuggled medicines, and later, having accumulated some funds, he opened a pharmacy.

Starting five years ago, Zhang realized that there were many uremia patients at the Third Hospital, because it was a key specialty of the hospital.

Not only in Haizhou City, but even in the whole province, the Third Hospital was also one of the top places for treating uremia.

From a medical perspective, uremia is not a particularly difficult disease to treat, just hard to cure; generally, dialysis is the only option to sustain life.

In the past, the cost of a single dialysis was very high, but over the years, with advances in medical technology and the inclusion of many batch-collected drugs into medical insurance, the cost of dialysis has gradually decreased.

Even those with financial difficulties can maintain dialysis because most of the dialysis costs can be reimbursed by health insurance.

However, the process of dialysis is still quite painful, especially over time when the body can be covered with needle marks.

And uremia is not an incurable disease, as long as there is a suitable kidney source, after a kidney transplant, uremia can be cured.

So there were many people waiting for a kidney transplant in the urology department of the Third Hospital, sometimes over a hundred, sometimes dozens.

But not everyone can afford a kidney transplant, which costs at least two or three hundred thousand.

And this is just the cost of a public kidney donation; if one buys a kidney source, there will be additional costs.

Zhang Meng saw this point, so starting five years ago, he figured out a chain. He had worked in the USA and knew the situation there.

So Zhang Meng gathered a few people and started this gray industry chain.

Zhang Meng’s leaving the pharmacy was not because he smelled trouble, but because he planned to have his car washed today.

Lu Chuan took the police and pinned Zhang Meng to the ground at a car wash not far from the Third Hospital.

Zhang Meng, after being arrested, offered no resistance and confessed to his crimes without hesitation.

He was very clear that if the police could catch him, it meant he had already been exposed, and once caught, trying to run was futile.

Especially in the beginning, the first few buyers directly contacted him, and he took certain protective measures to obtain kidney sources in the USA.

Later, although Zhang Meng realized this point, he began to gradually hide himself.

Judging by these years, Zhang Meng’s cautious behavior paid off, as this operation had been ongoing for five years.

Moreover, neither the sellers nor the buyers reported him.

After all, the sellers got the money, and the buyers got a new life.

If it weren’t for the abnormal fluctuations in medical data in the USA, this matter might have never been uncovered.

Of course, the entire case spanned a long period, and Lu Chuan and his team worked on it for about half a month.

This was also Lu Chuan’s first case representing the serious crimes unit of the provincial office. Although the process was arduous, the result was quite good.

Besides Zhang Meng, there were other accomplices in the pharmacy, all of whom confessed their crimes after Zhang’s arrest.

As for personnel from the Third Hospital, some were arrested too.

Because, generally, hospitals should be aware of the source of kidneys for uremia patients waiting for transplants.

And the relevant personnel knowingly performed surgeries despite the questionable origins of the kidneys, implicitly condoning such criminal activities.

In this case, Lu Chuan arrested over thirty people altogether.

This was one of the cases handled by Lu Chuan with the most arrests.

Moreover, it involved not only Haizhou City but also the USA.

Zhang Meng’s line had expanded its business scope starting last year.

In the provincial city, two kidneys were also sourced from him.

Inside the interrogation room.

Although Zhang confessed to his criminal activities, he did not genuinely believe that he had committed a crime; he felt he had only violated the law, but was not a criminal, as he had saved many lives.

"Do you know how many people I’ve saved in the past five years?"

Zhang Meng was very clear about the patients’ situations, having saved 19 people in total.

"Do you know who these 19 people are?"

Zhang Meng asked the interrogators for a cigarette: "There are high officials, wealthy individuals, lawyers, teachers; you can check for yourselves."

"Some of these people hold high positions of power, some control vast wealth, and they’ve developed uremia; without a new kidney, they would rely on dialysis for life, but how long they can live is uncertain."

"And as for the USA, why didn’t the 19 sellers report me? Do you guess why? Because they needed money, and I gave them money."

"A kidney would not cost their life, and to them, exchanging a kidney for thousands or tens of thousands is a very worthwhile deal because they’re waiting for that money to save their own lives."

Zhang Meng took a deep breath: "I’m not a criminal; I merely violated the law."

"After all, in foreign countries, my actions are legal, right?!"

Lu Chuan, listening to the last sophistry from the monitoring room next door, his face changed: "Complete nonsense!"

He left the monitoring room and entered the interrogation room directly, staring at this organ trafficker who confessed but showed no remorse for his crimes.

"Zhang Meng, don’t wrap yourself up as a saint; you are a criminal!"