A Chinese teen has allegedly gone to the ultimate extreme in his quest for the latest in Apple technology.
The International Business Times is reporting that a 17-year-old high school student named Xiao Zheng sold one of his kidneys to purchase an iPad 2 tablet. Zheng, who lives in China's Anhui province, connected with an organ-selling agent on the Internet who offered him cash for a kidney. Then the teen reportedly traveled to the city of Chenzhou in Hunan province, where the kidney is said to have been removed at a hospital under the supervision of three "middlemen."
"I wanted to buy an iPad 2 but could not afford it," Zheng told Shenzhen TV, according to Shanghai Daily. "A broker contacted me on the Internet and said he could help me sell one kidney for 20,000 yuan [roughly $3,084.45]."
After being discharged from the hospital, Zheng returned home with both a brand-new laptop and an iPhone, but quickly began experiencing complications from the surgery, according to the Telegraph. When his mother discovered the products and forced her son to reveal how he could afford them, she immediately notified local police, Global Times is reporting.
"When he came back, he had a laptop and a new Apple handset," his mother, identified as Miss Liu, is quoted by the Telegraph as saying, "I wanted to know how he had got so much money and he finally confessed that he had sold one of his kidneys."
Chenzhou 198 Hospital, where Zheng allegedly had his surgery, has no qualifications for kidney transplantation, and has since denied any knowledge of the operation because the department that did the surgery had been contracted to a Fujian businessman, Shanghai Daily reports. Police are continuing to investigate the case.