Taipei [Taiwan], September 11 : Three people in Taiwan narrowly escaped being trafficked to China, where they allegedly would have had their organs forcibly removed, after being lured by fake online job postings, according to a report by The Epoch Times. 
As cited in The Epoch Times report, prosecutors in the northern Taiwan city of Taoyuan said on Sept. 9 that the three victims had been targeted through fraudulent social media advertisements offering high-paying illegal work. The Taoyuan District Prosecutors’ Office indicted seven people allegedly belonging to a human trafficking ring and is seeking the maximum sentence of seven years for each defendant.
Prosecutors identified the defendants only by part of their names and said one of them, surnamed Chiang, was the suspected leader of the trafficking operation. According to The Epoch Times report, prosecutors alleged that Chiang planned the operation last year, while another defendant was responsible for contacting potential organ buyers in China.
The trafficking group was allegedly promised between 100,000 and 300,000 Tether tokens for every victim transported out of Taiwan for organ removal, the report said.
To identify potential victims, three of the defendants allegedly used Facebook, Telegram and other social media platforms to post advertisements offering high pay to people willing to work as money mules or smugglers. Those who responded to the postings were allegedly taken to and held at a residential building in Taoyuan, according to prosecutors cited by the news report. 
Taiwan’s Criminal Investigation Bureau said during a press conference on Sept. 9 that Chiang had also visited a local fishing port. This suggested that the trafficking group may have planned to transport victims to China by fishing boat, according to the news report.
A screenshot of the defendants’ Telegram communications reportedly showed one of them writing that people in China would be responsible for picking up the victims after they were sent there.
Prosecutors said three people had fallen for the scam, but none of them was ultimately trafficked to China.
The seven defendants were indicted on multiple charges, including participation in a criminal organisation under Taiwan’s Organised Crime Prevention Act, attempted human trafficking under the Criminal Code, and attempting to have other people’s organs removed for profit through deception under the Human Trafficking Prevention Act.
The alleged trafficking case comes amid renewed concerns in Taiwan over forced organ harvesting and transplant-related activity involving China.
According to the news report, those concerns drew renewed attention in June following the case of Chen Yao-li, a once well-known liver transplant doctor. Chen was sentenced that month to two years in prison, suspended for five years, and had his medical license revoked. He had been indicted in 2024 for allegedly violating Taiwan’s Human Organ Transplant Act by illegally brokering patients to China for liver and kidney transplants.
Also in June, Taiwanese legislators held a parliamentary hearing to examine the need for new legislation to strengthen the island’s legal framework against forced organ harvesting and combat transplant tourism linked to China, the report said.
The news report further cited findings published in 2020 by the China Tribunal, an independent London-based people’s tribunal, which concluded that most victims of forced organ harvesting in China had been prisoners of conscience.