Urban Legend Makes International News

In late 2000, a horrifying news story came out of Russia: A grandmother was arrested for allegedly trying to sell her five-year-old grandson Andrei. Police in Ryazan, south of Moscow, said that the grandmother told the boy he was going to Disneyland. With the help of the boy's uncle, little Andrei was handed over to a man in exchange for $90,000.

But the story is more than just a tragic tale of a child sold into slavery or prostitution: according to the uncle and police, Andrei was sold to a man who would then take him to "the West," where he would be killed and his kidneys and other organs would be removed and sold. That's the story, anyway.

Several news organizations carried some version of the article, including the Times of India, the Associated Press, and Cable News Network (CNN). The story first appeared October 28, 2000, in the Associated Press, and was published exactly a month later by CNN. The CNN story was the most complete of the lot, with photos of a young boy and a woman in dark glasses and a hat, identified as Andrei's grandmother. The grandmother claimed that she was simply putting the orphaned boy up for adoption.

In the CNN.com version (available at www.cnn.com/2000/world/europe/11/28/russia.children), a short video clip accompanies the story. The piece, narrated by correspondent Steve Harrigan, identifies the uncle as Sergei Tkachov and a police spokesman as Dmitri Korneyev. It also includes what is claimed to be undercover surveillance videotape, though much of the footage looks suspiciously staged.

There are several reasons why this story is suspect. First, in the print versions, the principals are identified only by their first names. Other than the boy "Andrei" and his grandmother "Nina," no one else is identified. Quotes are unattributed, with phraseology such as "a police detective said ..." and "police said." Of course, "police" don't say anything; if a certain police officer says something, then he or she should usually be identified. This sort of writing helps obscure the sources, thus making follow-up verification difficult.

The story falters on its own logic. A five-year-old's organs, specifically the parts the article says he was sold for -- the kidneys, heart, or lungs -- would likely be unusable. No adult could benefit from a five-year-old's organs. They would be much too small and underdeveloped to simply insert into a grown adult. And it stretches credulity even further to posit that there is one or more five-year-old children in American or European hospitals awaiting stolen hearts, eyes, kidneys, or lungs.

I wrote about this urban legend in a previous issue ("Bitter Harvest: The Organ-snatching Urban Legends," SI 23(3) May/June 1999), and the reasons to be suspicious. It's important to realize that organs can't simply be pulled out of one person and put into another; transplants can't be done in someone's basement. Sophisticated medical equipment must be used, and donors and recipients must be carefully matched. Blood and tissue typing and histocompatibility tests must be done in advance. Well-paid medical staff, both here and abroad, are unlikely to risk their careers and reputations performing such illegal and unethical procedures.

Urban legends, presumed by some to be primarily a Western phenomenon, are in fact global. The film Mute Witness, whose topic was the urban legend of the snuff film, for example, was set (and filmed) in Russia.

Another oddity about the case is that while the grandmother and uncle are photographed, (partially) identified, and arrested, no mention at all is made of those allegedly buying the organs. While the grandmother could get three to ten years in jail, the story is curiously silent about the person(s) she "sold" Andrei to. Presumably, they would be the larger threat.

There can be a seamy side to the transfer of children. That children are bought and sold in economically depressed areas is firmly established (usually they are used for child labor or prostitution). In addition, there is also unquestionably a global effort to provide children and babies for adoption-- usually legally, but sometimes not. There is, however, a giant leap of inference between saying that the child was sold (or illegally adopted) and saying that he was sold to be subsequently killed for his organs. Some police officials undoubtedly believe in the commerce of stolen childrens organs, and in many places the urban legend is wholly believed.

Ms. Ofelia Calcetas-Santos, of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, isn't convinced that the trade in children's organs exists, calling the stories "rumors." According to the 1999 Report of the Special Rapporteur on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography, "Rumors persist that there exists an illegal trade in human organs, and the Special Rapporteur has received allegations that street children in [Latin America] and the Russian Federation are being killed so that their organs can be used in transplant operations. Such allegations have recurred repeatedly for over twenty years, but to the best of the Special Rapporteur's knowledge, nobody has been convicted of being connected with such an offense."