the Las Vegas Sun<\/em> about the myth back in 1996.<\/p>\nAs usual, pop culture didn’t help the cause of truth any. TV portrayed kidney thefts on a 1991 episode of \u201cLaw & Order\u201d and a 2006 episode of \u201cLas Vegas,\u201d and the movies included scenes in \u201cThe Harvest\u201d (1993) and \u201cUrban Legend\u201d (1998).<\/p>\n
By 2001, the myth was so widespread that the National Kidney Foundation asked anyone claiming to have had a kidney stolen in the US to contact them for help in documenting a case.<\/strong><\/p>\nIn 23 years, according to the organization, no one has.<\/p>\n
We Kidney You Not<\/h2>\n Though no documented cases have occurred in the US, and the scenarios differ markedly, kidney theft is reportedly a thing elsewhere in the world.<\/p>\n
According to a 2008 report in Britain’s The Guardian,<\/em> seven people were arrested in the Indian city of Gurgaon that January for luring 600 laborers to an underground medical clinic over the course of a decade.<\/p>\nVictims of illegal kidney harvesting rings in India display scars they received after being coerced into surgery. (Images: Monir Moniruzzaman\/Asia Times<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\nThe brokers promised the laborers jobs, then either duped or forced them into donating a kidney to wealthy clients who needed one in the US, UK, Canada, Saudi Arabia, and Greece.<\/strong><\/p>\nFive people were convicted in the black-market ring. According to a March 2013 report in the Hindustan Times, <\/em>the scheme’s leaders, Dr. Amit Kumar and Dr. Upender Dublesh, both received seven years each of \u201crigorous\u201d imprisonment.<\/p>\nArt Caplan, co-chairman of the United Nations task force on organ trafficking, estimated that about a quarter of all kidneys transplanted internationally in 2011 appeared to have been trafficked.<\/p>\n
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Illegal kidney trafficking has even occurred in the US. In the first proven case, Levy Izhak Rosenbaum, 60, was convicted in October 2011 of securing kidneys for three Americans from Israeli donors in exchange for payments of $120K each. He served two and a half years in prison.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Again, though, no documented case of case of kidney theft has ever occurred in the US.<\/em><\/p>\nThat is, not until the morning you wake up in an ice-filled Las Vegas hotel bathtub with a note on the counter.<\/p>\n
Look for \u201cVegas Myths Busted\u201d every Monday on Casino.org.<\/em> Visit VegasMythsBusted.com<\/a> to read previously busted Vegas myths. Got a suggestion for a Vegas myth that needs busting? Email corey@casino.org.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Welcome to the one people have requested since we started this series two years and 106 busted myths ago. For decades, businessmen are believed to have awoken in ice-filled Las Vegas hotel bathtubs, remembering that drink they were fixed the night before by the illegal sex worker they asked up to their room. That’s when, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":78,"featured_media":326544,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,81886,88494,1,84511],"tags":[91599,82327,84114,84887,84694,91598,91864,23,82246,91862,91863,91861,91860,84110,91865,84826],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
VEGAS MYTHS BUSTED: Waking Up in a Hotel Bathtub Missing a Kidney - Casino.org<\/title>\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\t \n\t \n\t \n \n \n \n \n \n\t \n\t \n\t \n