A Los Angeles hospital provided liver transplants to four Japanese gang figures over a period when several hundred local patients died while awaiting transplants, according to report today.
The surgeries were performed at UCLA Medical Centre by world-renowned liver surgeon Dr. Ronald Busuttil, executive chairman of UCLA's surgery department, the Los Angeles Timesreported.
The surgeries were performed between 2000 and 2004, and in each of those years more than 100 patients died awaiting liver transplants in the greater Los Angeles region, according to the Times.
There is no indication UCLA or Mr Busuttil knew any of the patients had ties to Japanese gangs, known as yakuza, the Timesreported.
The school and Mr Busuttil said in statements they did not make moral judgments about patients, but treated them according to medical need.
US transplant rules do not prohibit hospitals from performing transplants on foreign patients or those with criminal histories.
Tadamasa Goto, who had been barred from entering the US because of his criminal history, was the most prominent transplant recipient. He leads a gang called the Goto-gumi, according to the Times.
With help from the FBI, Goto obtained a visa to enter America in 2001 in exchange for leads on potentially illegal activity in the US by Japanese criminal gangs, the retired chief of the FBI’s Asian criminal enterprise unit in Washington, told the paper.
PA