Photo: TheScienceExplorer.com
Smuggling drugs, gold or art is old news. A Malaysian man was arrested at an airport in India, as he was trying to bring a live human embryo in the country.
The destination was a renown infertility clinic, Partiban Durai told the authorities after he was apprehended, according to Times of India. He had been working with them for 18 moths, during which time he had made the same journey 10 times.
The M.O. was always the same: Durai would fly into India carrying a special nitrogen-packed canister in which there was a live embryo, land, check into a hotel and inform the people at the clinic that he had arrived and everything was ok. He would then meet with someone and hand over the package. He would land in the morning and set back for Malaysia with an evening flight.
Authorities told Durai that it would be in his best interest to cooperate, so he agreed to help them catch the bigger fish. “Durai sent images of the hotel to his handlers as proof that everything was happening as planned. Durai was asked to deliver the embryo to the Indo Nippon Clinic. Gandhi [the director of the clinic] received him and collected the canister,” an official says for the publication.
Goral Gandhi, the clinic’s director and head of scientific research, denies that the embryo was intended for the clinic. Police are now trying to determine whether they had already found a surrogate mother for it or they were planning to sell it to another clinic.
India has lax legislation regarding surrogacy. There is a law that allows close relative to act as surrogates (“altruist” surrogacy), but it’s easy and relatively cheap to find a surrogate there without fear of repercussion. This is why the embryos were being flown out of Malaysia and into India, authorities believe.
The M.O. was always the same: Durai would fly into India carrying a special nitrogen-packed canister in which there was a live embryo, land, check into a hotel and inform the people at the clinic that he had arrived and everything was ok. He would then meet with someone and hand over the package. He would land in the morning and set back for Malaysia with an evening flight.
Authorities told Durai that it would be in his best interest to cooperate, so he agreed to help them catch the bigger fish. “Durai sent images of the hotel to his handlers as proof that everything was happening as planned. Durai was asked to deliver the embryo to the Indo Nippon Clinic. Gandhi [the director of the clinic] received him and collected the canister,” an official says for the publication.
Goral Gandhi, the clinic’s director and head of scientific research, denies that the embryo was intended for the clinic. Police are now trying to determine whether they had already found a surrogate mother for it or they were planning to sell it to another clinic.
India has lax legislation regarding surrogacy. There is a law that allows close relative to act as surrogates (“altruist” surrogacy), but it’s easy and relatively cheap to find a surrogate there without fear of repercussion. This is why the embryos were being flown out of Malaysia and into India, authorities believe.
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