Is the human body sacred? Or is it a commodity ready to be chopped up and exposed to the forces of supply and demand? The answer is a matter of perspective. Our own body is a temple. But when we need a spare part, suddenly we’re surprisingly open to a transaction. To a person looking for a kidney, a scientist trying to learn anatomy, a beauty parlor customer looking for the perfect ‘do, there’s no substitute for a piece of someone else.

The problem is, demand for replacement flesh grossly outstrips supply. In the US and like-minded countries, it’s illegal to sell body parts—they can be taken only from those who filled out a donor card before they died or who are willing to give up an organ out of sheer benevolence. This means there isn’t enough tissue to go around. So, as with any outlawed or heavily regulated resource, a bustling underground trade has formed.

Sometimes the market in body parts is exploitive: Desperate people are paid tiny sums for huge donations. Other times it is ghoulish: Pieces are stolen from the recently dead. And every so often, the resource grab is lethal—people are simply killed for their organs. Welcome to the red market.

Photos: Christian Weber

Illustrations: Istvan Orosz

Until the 1970s, for-profit blood-collection centers were located in almost every poor neighborhood, somewhat like payday loan centers are today. This changed after a study showed that paid donations encourage lax standards. As a result, the rules were modified and blood and organs can no longer be sold. At least not here. In the developing world, there are still profits to be made. In 2008, blood thieves in India were busted for keeping people prisoner and milking their blood up to three times a week. Some captives had been held for more than two years.









The liver is amazingly resilient; even a badly damaged one can fully regenerate on its own. But when there’s an excessive buildup of scar tissue, a person will need a transplant. The good news is that a patient may not need a whole new organ: Because of the liver’s fortitude, just a healthy lobe may be enough. This means living donors are possible. The bad news is that, for the living donor, recovery can be excruciating, so donors aren’t common. Executed Chinese prisoners are one source of black-market livers. Or organ brokers can set you up in the Philippines, where illicit donations likely come from those desperate for cash.









In the late 1970s, Gunther von Hagens revolutionized the study of anatomy by changing the way specimens were prepared. Instead of immersing dead bodies in a preservative, he replaced their fat and water with polymer, turning corpses into plastic statues. Plastination exposed the body’s internal structures and greatly enhanced researchers’ ability to study them. It also led to several traveling exhibition shows. An investigation into those shows revealed that many bodies were likely coming from executed prisoners.









Scott Carney (scottcarney.com) is a contributing editor at Wired. His forthcoming book The Red Market: On the Trail of the World’s Organ Brokers, Bone Thieves, Blood Farmers, and Child Traffickers comes out in June.