Yesterday, two defendants accused of illegally organizing blood selling were brought to court. Reporters from our newspaper, Wang GuiBin, took the photo.
According to a report, taking advantage of migrant workers' eagerness to earn money and patients' urgent need for treatment, an organized group has been long stationed near a hospital in west 4th Ring Road, buying blood at low prices and selling it at high prices. Yesterday, five members of this blood trafficking gang were tried in Haidian Court on charges of illegal organization of blood selling.
The main criminal in this case is still at large.
Both cases reviewed yesterday involved illegal organization of blood selling. All five defendants were organized by an escaped person nicknamed "Ergo" and they all worked around the same hospital. Because they were all individually connected with "Ergo" and had no contact with each other, the prosecution separately prosecuted both cases.
According to the prosecution's accusation, in August 2011, Zhang Liang, Ding Jiang, Xie GuiBao, Xiong ChenYan, Sun GuangXin, etc., colluded with "Ergo" (at large) and others through online methods to find blood sellers, and let these sellers pretend as relatives or friends of the patients to sell blood in the hospital. The five defendants sold blood three times in total.
All five defendants admitted to the charges but emphasized that they only did it for the money.
"One-stop" organization of blood selling
The five defendants said that they started working when they were looking for jobs on QQ groups, 58.com, or the labor market at Liuliqiao, where they were discovered by "Ergo" and recruited into the gang. Afterwards, they found people who wanted to sell blood through these channels and brought them to the hospital.
According to Zhang Liang, initially "Ergo" asked him to distribute business cards outside the hospital. On the card was printed a name and phone number. He then approached the relatives of patients waiting in line to donate blood and handed them the business card. According to the confessions of Ding Jiang and Xie GuiBao, they were responsible for bringing the clients pulled by Zhang Liang to the blood transfusion department, helping them fill out forms, queue up, and process paperwork. Zhang Liang also mentioned that there were some people brought by "Ergo" responsible for guarding the premises and preventing donors from saying too much.
Blood sellers were required to memorize the patient's name
Cao Mou, a 23-year-old blood donor, testified that he was discovered by the gang after posting a job-seeking ad on Ganji.com. After posting his ad, a stranger called him and said he could make money by donating blood at a regular hospital, then arranged a meeting nearby, later another man brought him to the blood transfusion department, and finally another man guided him through the entire procedure.
Cao Mou said that during the wait, he was reminded: "If anyone inside asks, just say it's a friend." According to Zhang Liang's confession, to prevent being caught by the hospital, they also reminded the donors to memorize the patient's name and relationship.
Based on the defendants' confessions, generally, for every 400cc of blood donated, the donors would receive between 350-400 yuan, while the blood traffickers would get commissions of 30-50 yuan based on their roles. However, the price negotiated between the "blood boss" and the patient's family was usually between 1500-2000 yuan.
Prosecution recommends sentencing below five years
"On the first day, Ergo gave me 200 yuan, on the second day, he gave me 100 yuan, that's all, then we got caught," Zhang Liang choked back tears and said he didn't know it was illegal before, asking the judge for one more chance. The only defendant with a defense lawyer, Sun GuangXin, also claimed that his role in the specific act was auxiliary and secondary, just connecting with blood sellers, making him an accomplice, and should be punished less severely.
In response, the prosecutor stated that although each defendant had different roles and often communicated individually with "Ergo", performing only small tasks, each of them was an indispensable part of the entire crime process, therefore, the case should not distinguish between principal and accomplices.
The prosecution believed that all five defendants committed the crime of illegal organization of blood selling. According to Chinese law, they should be sentenced to less than five years in prison, but the court is requested to consider factors such as whether they are repeat offenders and their attitude towards confessing.
■ Investigation
Organizers promise 2-hour blood transfusion
Family members of patients say using blood bank blood requires waiting
At around 2 pm yesterday, at the hospital involved in the case, the queue of people waiting outside the blood transfusion department had already reached several meters. According to the hospital's normal procedures, mutual aid blood donation among relatives and friends needs to go through filling out forms, testing blood types, drawing blood, stamping the blood transfusion application form with an official seal, and delivering the form back to the doctor in the ward, so the relatives of patients queuing up to donate blood all held a large stack of forms.
One relative waiting in line said that although queuing was necessary, it was more convenient than purchasing blood from the hospital's blood bank. Since the surgery wasn't immediate, using blood from the blood bank still required waiting, which might delay the surgery.
Nearby, a few men with northeastern accents occasionally handed out forms or left phone numbers to those waiting in line. One man surnamed Wang, who called himself "Da She Tou", said they all found people outside to come to the hospital to donate blood. The hospital just formally checks if the donor is a relative or friend. Once the donor finishes donating blood and gets the proof slip, the patient can give it to the doctor to request a blood transfusion. "We can also help with queuing to ensure the blood transfusion is done before the hospital closes. 400cc for 2000 yuan, guaranteed to be done within 2 hours and you'll get your transfusion."
It is understood that the hospital's blood bank generally has a fixed amount. If it's not an emergency use of blood and the family wants to have the surgery earlier, the hospital usually advises the family to donate blood at the blood center to exchange for an equal amount of blood.
Another family member said that her elderly relative in the hepatobiliary department wanted surgery, and there were already many people waiting for blood through the hospital's normal channels. "Although buying blood is more expensive than the formal channel, it's worth spending money to solve the problem rather than having the family come to Beijing."
■ Case Analysis
No unified blood collection creates loopholes
Prosecution says it's difficult for hospitals to verify if donors are relatives or friends
According to the prosecutor, last year, the public security bureau of Haidian District handled six similar cases involving over ten defendants. Their methods included illegally organizing blood sellers to introduce patient families to bring the blood sellers to the hospital's blood transfusion department to pretend as family members or friends for mutual aid blood donation; another method was to directly inform the blood sellers of the patient's information, and the blood sellers went to the hospital's blood transfusion department themselves for mutual aid blood donation. After the blood donation was completed, the upper-level personnel directly charged the patient or the patient's family a "benefit fee".
It was introduced that the main reason for these cases was that the hospital did not require the donors to go to the Beijing Blood Center for unified collection like other hospitals. Although the original intention of this measure was to facilitate the daily large number of patients in the hospital, it also allowed criminals to exploit the loophole. However, the prosecution also believed that the hospital involved in the case had fulfilled its obligations to check and verify the identity of the blood donors and test the quality of the blood. Requiring them to further identify if the blood seller and the patient undergoing mutual aid blood donation are family members or friends indeed presents difficulties.
For this reason, the security department of the hospital issued a written material to the judicial authorities, stating "Recently, there have often been some idle social individuals around our hospital's blood transfusion department who organize others to illegally sell blood under the guise of mutual aid blood donation. We hope the public security organs will deal with it according to law."
■ Expert Opinion
Mutual aid blood donation should be strictly controlled
Yesterday, Professor Xu Lanting from China University of Political Science and Law's Criminal Justice College believed that the establishment of the crime of illegal organization of blood selling in the "Criminal Law" was due to considering the social hazards of organizing blood selling behavior. Such behavior not only seriously disrupts social management order but also endangers the safety of clinical medical blood use.
Xu Lanting said that mutual aid blood donation also requires blood testing, but because the "blood sellers" often do not truthfully fill out the "Health Consultation Form" during blood donation, the blood they donate may endanger the patient's health.
Dr. Lei Yan from the Institute of Sociology of the Beijing Academy of Social Sciences believed that according to the "Law of the People's Republic of China on Blood Donation", China implements a voluntary blood donation system and does not allow the buying and selling of blood. In reality, there are indeed cases where patients urgently need blood, but it's hard to find.
He said that the appearance of blood trading cannot be separated from the background of "blood shortage". To deal with such phenomena, apart from publicizing through the media, regulators also need to establish unified collection points to cut off the flow of blood from such illegal organizations into the formal system at the source.
He also suggested that hospitals should strictly control the mutual aid blood donation process and promptly report suspicious situations to the public security and judicial authorities to avoid such situations as much as possible.
Steps to Organize Blood Selling
1. Contact patients or their families in the hospital who need blood, agree on the amount of blood, blood type, time of use, and charge a "benefit fee" based on the amount of blood needed.
2. Find blood sellers, agree on the price, bring them to the hospital, and develop downlines among the blood sellers to expand the organization.
3. During blood selling, there are dedicated people within the organization responsible for guiding in the hospital, distributing blood donation information cards, and keeping watch to prevent competition for blood sources.
This edition was written/compiled by reporter Zhang Yuan.
Blood traffickers caught for illegally organizing blood selling, each transaction can profit thousands of yuan.