Chinese customs officers have made the world’s biggest seizure of human organs in history this morning, a total of 7221 penises of African origin hidden in a refrigerated freight container.
Acting on information from an anonymous informer, Chinese officers found the organs in 36 boxes labelled as plantains (cooking bananas) inside a refrigerated container on a ship harboured in the Shanghai Port.
Chinese General Administration of Customs spokesman, Li Wu, says an increasingly large number of armed groups in Africa use organ trafficking to finance themselves, making such seizures predictable.
Mr. Li says the organs were shipped from Lagos in Nigeria but may have only transited through that country and could possibly originate from elsewhere in Africa.
Human penises were seized in nine cases since 2002, but today’s find represents more than four times the amount seized by customs officers over the past 18 years.
The Chinese General Administration of Customs says similar seizures may become more common over the next few years as armed groups in Africa turn to organ trafficking to finance their military operations.
Describing the organ’s value as high as illegal drugs, he said that “specimens of this size” usually fetched around $160,000 each on the black market, and its total value was more than $1.15 billion.
The ship’s crew, four Nigerians, two Malians and two Cameronese are being detained for interrogation, but no charges have yet been filed against them.