“Organ trafficking is a growth industry,” said Jonathan Ratel, a European Union special prosecutor who is leading a case against seven people accused of luring poor victims from Turkey and former communist countries to Kosovo to sell their kidneys with false promises of payments of up to $20,000. “Organized criminal groups are preying upon the vulnerable on both sides of the supply chain: people suffering from chronic poverty, and desperate and wealthy patients who will do anything to survive.” 
 
 The main supply countries have traditionally been China, India, Brazil and the Philippines. But experts say Europeans are increasingly vulnerable. 
 
 An estimated 15,000 to 20,000 kidneys are illegally sold globally each year, according to Organs Watch, a human rights group in Berkeley, Calif., that tracks the illegal organ trade. The World Health Organization estimates that only 10 percent of global needs for organ transplantation are being met. 
 
 Nancy Scheper-Hughes, the director of Organs Watch and a professor of medical anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley, said the attempt by poor Europeans to sell their organs was reminiscent of the period after the collapse of the Soviet Union, when chronic joblessness created a new breed of willing sellers. 
 
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 Trade in organs in Serbia is illegal and punishable by up to 10 years in prison. But that is not deterring the people of Doljevac, a poor municipality of 19,000 people in southern Serbia, where the government refused an attempt by residents to register a local agency to sell their organs and blood abroad for profit. 
 
 Violeta Cavac, a homemaker advocating for the network, said that the unemployment rate in Doljevac was 50 percent and that more than 3,000 people had wanted to participate. Deprived of a legal channel to sell their organs, she said, residents are now trying to sell body parts in neighboring Bulgaria or in Kosovo. 
 
 “I will sell my kidney, my liver, or do anything necessary to survive,” she said. 
 
 Hunched over his computer in Kovin, about 25 miles from Belgrade, Mr. Mircov showed a reporter his kidney-for-sale advertisement, which included his blood type and phone number. 
 
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 “Must sell kidney. Blood group A,” the ad said. “My financial situation is very difficult. I lost my job, and I need money for school for my two children.” 
 
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 After six months of advertising, Mr. Mircov said, his days are punctuated by hope and disappointment. He said a man from Mannheim, Germany, had offered to fly him to Germany and cover the transplant costs. But when Mr. Mircov tried to follow up, he said, the man disappeared. 
 
 A woman from Macedonia offered $24,000 for a kidney from his partner, Daniella, but that was $12,000 below her asking price. She noted that she has blood type O, which can bring a $12,000 premium on the organ market because the blood is safe for most recipients. 
 
 Mr. Mircov said he had no fear about an eventual operation or legal strictures forbidding organ sales. “It’s my body, and I should be able to do what I want with it,” he said. 
 
 Government officials insisted that Serbia was not so poor as to reduce people to selling their body parts, while police officials said not a single case of organ trafficking in Serbia had been prosecuted in the past 10 years. Experts who study illegal organ sales said prosecutions were rare because transplants usually took place in third countries, making them difficult to track. 
 
 Dr. Djoko Maksic, a leading nephrologist who runs the transplant program at the Military Medical Academy in Belgrade, expressed disbelief that illegal organ selling was taking place in Serbia, saying every potential donor was scrutinized and vetted by a hospital committee consisting of doctors, ethicists and lawyers. 
 
 But Milovan, 52, a former factory worker from a rural village in southern Serbia, said he “gave” his kidney to a wealthy local politician who, in return, put him on his company payroll and offered to buy him medication. The kidney was extracted at a public hospital in Belgrade, he said, with both men using forged donor cards indicating they were brothers. 
 
 Debt-ridden, Milovan, who declined to give his last name for fear of being ostracized by his neighbors, lamented that the recipient had recently cut him off, and his family said he had spent his money so quickly that he was reduced to selling eggs at a local market. 

 After six months of advertising, Mr. Mircov said, his days are punctuated by hope and disappointment. He said a man from Mannheim, Germany, had offered to fly him to Germany and cover the transplant costs. But when Mr. Mircov tried to follow up, he said, the man disappeared. 
 
 A woman from Macedonia offered $24,000 for a kidney from his partner, Daniella, but that was $12,000 below her asking price. She noted that she has blood type O, which can bring a $12,000 premium on the organ market because the blood is safe for most recipients. 
 
 Mr. Mircov said he had no fear about an eventual operation or legal strictures forbidding organ sales. “It’s my body, and I should be able to do what I want with it,” he said. 
 
 Government officials insisted that Serbia was not so poor as to reduce people to selling their body parts, while police officials said not a single case of organ trafficking in Serbia had been prosecuted in the past 10 years. Experts who study illegal organ sales said prosecutions were rare because transplants usually took place in third countries, making them difficult to track. 
 
 Dr. Djoko Maksic, a leading nephrologist who runs the transplant program at the Military Medical Academy in Belgrade, expressed disbelief that illegal organ selling was taking place in Serbia, saying every potential donor was scrutinized and vetted by a hospital committee consisting of doctors, ethicists and lawyers. 
 
 But Milovan, 52, a former factory worker from a rural village in southern Serbia, said he “gave” his kidney to a wealthy local politician who, in return, put him on his company payroll and offered to buy him medication. The kidney was extracted at a public hospital in Belgrade, he said, with both men using forged donor cards indicating they were brothers. 
 
 Debt-ridden, Milovan, who declined to give his last name for fear of being ostracized by his neighbors, lamented that the recipient had recently cut him off, and his family said he had spent his money so quickly that he was reduced to selling eggs at a local market.
– As Europeans grapple with economic misery, illegal organ sales are on the rise, with desperate sellers willing to part with kidneys, corneas, bone marrow, and even lungs. "When you need to put food on the table, selling a kidney doesn’t seem like much of a sacrifice," says an unemployed Serbian man who hopes his kidney will bring in $40,000; he's been advertising its sale online for the last six months. Internet ads spotted across Italy, Spain, Greece, and Russia, meanwhile, offer lungs for sale for as much as $250,000, the New York Times reports. "Unscrupulous traffickers" are turning toward Europe as well, the paper adds, ready to profit off of the continent's economic woes. "Organized criminal groups are preying upon the vulnerable on both sides of the supply chain: people suffering from chronic poverty, and desperate and wealthy patients who will do anything to survive," says a European Union prosecutor. Indeed, WHO figures show that just 10% of those in need are getting transplants. Between 15,000 and 20,000 kidneys sell on the black market worldwide yearly, analysts note; until recently, organs had typically come from China, India, the Philippines, and Brazil. The Times shares the harrowing story of one couple trying to sell their kidneys; click to read.