How Did Organ Trafficking Scheme Stay Hidden?
The arrest of Levy Izhak Rosenbaum, the Brooklyn resident charged last month with acting as a “matchmaker” for 
buyers and sellers of human organs, spotlights the issue of live donor organ trafficking in the United States. It also raises a question: How could Rosenbaum ply his trade for as long as a decade, according to statements in the criminal complaint filed against him, without being caught?
The 1984 National Organ Transplantation Act states clearly that the buying and selling of organs is illegal: Violators face up to five years in prison and a $50,000 fine. The prohibition is intended to prevent exploitation of the poor or others who might be tempted to sell an organ out of desperation.
When it comes to enforcing the law, however, transplant centers are essentially left to police themselves. The law doesn’t offer guidelines about how transplant centers should proceed if they suspect a live donor has been paid.
“Other countries have mobilized the justice system around the traffic, and the U.S. has in my estimation turned a blind eye,” said Nancy Scheper-Hughes , an anthropologist from the University of California, Berkeley, who has documented the international organ trafficking business for more than a decade. The Daily News in New York reported that Scheper-Hughes had informed the FBI about Rosenbaum’s business seven years before he was finally arrested.