In the heart of Ablekuma in the Greater Accra region, a 26-year-old primary school teacher’s life has taken a dark and sinister turn.
She doesn’t feel complete as a human; she is shattered after she went chasing the luxuries of the world.
She was born with two kidneys but has to live the rest of her life depending on just one—the love of her life stole the other and vanished like thin air, without a trace.
Rita (not her real name) lost her mother to kidney failure in 2019, and her father died a year later due to heartbreak caused by the mother’s demise.
After struggling for over two years to rebuild a faithful relationship with God, she stumbled upon a church, seeking solace and a sense of belonging.
Little did she know that her trust would be exploited in the most heinous way.
Narrating her ordeal in an exclusive interview with The Ghana Report, Rita stressed the need for young people, especially ladies, to be patient in their quest for love and wealth because predatory organ harvesters are lurking to find their next victim.
Rita recounted that a charming man approached her after a church service on July 10, 2021, at Ablekuma.
His kind words and gentle demeanour drew her in, and the gentleman introduced himself as King.
“Hello, woman of God, how was service today?” he asked.
“That was how our conversation started, and after talking for nearly 20 minutes, the gentleman offered to drop me home, which I agreed to because I was a new person in the church and wanted to familiarise myself with the church and make new friends,” she recalled.
According to Rita, as their friendship blossomed, King showered her with attention and affection. Thus, she assumed that was a whirlwind of godly love.
King asked Rita to be his girlfriend about a month into their friendship.
“Getting to about one month of joining the church, King proposed to me and asked me to be his girlfriend. Sincerely, from all the care he was showing me, I thought it was a step in the right direction because I am not from an extremely wealthy family, but King seemed to be well-to-do and a very young, optimistic man,” she said.
As their relationship bloomed, King proposed a trip to Dubai on Sunday, August 14, 2021, after church, and she agreed, blinded by love and naivety.
“About two weeks into the relationship, which was just one month, two weeks we met, he had processed my documents for us to travel.”
According to Rita, she had no cause to suspect King of malice, even though the Dubai trip was sudden.
“Sincerely, it never occurred to me that he was a bad person. He doesn’t take alcohol or smoke, and he never gave me any reasons to doubt him, and for the fact that we met in church, I believed that he was my God-ordained man,” she stated.
According to Rita, the vacation was a dream come true—until it wasn’t.
On the scheduled date, the pair met at the Kotoka International Airport and departed for the ‘lovely‘ vacation.
“So we travelled to Dubai, and the experience was a very beautiful one. We went out on a yacht. We visited the Burj Khalifa. We went shopping; we rode on camels and had so much fun. We stayed in Dubai for a week and returned to Ghana,” she said, her voice filled with nostalgia.
Upon their return, she was prompted to ask King about his occupation, despite King telling her earlier that he was from a wealthy home and also into the importation of cars.
He reiterated his import/export business and wealthy family, further solidifying her trust.
“King pampered me and treated me like a queen,” she said, her eyes widening in amazement.
But when she asked about intimacy, he cleverly dodged the question, citing Christian values.
“What even baffled me was that he never asked me for sex or to get intimate with him. Once, I tried initiating intimacy, but he declined, stating that, as Christians, we must not engage in fornication. But even if we should get intimate, it should be only kissing, and even with that, we must both go to a hospital to check for any sexually transmitted diseases before we can do that,” she recalled.
The fateful day arrived when King suggested a medical test for sexually transmitted diseases (STDs).
Rita, still entranced, complied.
“One Saturday, we went to the GAEC Hospital and got tested for all forms of sexually transmitted diseases. Interestingly, that day when we got to the hospital, he took charge, and all I had to do was go to the lab and get tested. Not long after, we got our results and were cleared of any sexually transmitted infections,” she said.
She then visited King in his house for the first time at East Legon Hills.
“It was a beautiful two-bedroom self-contained, gated, and magnificent house,” she described the building.
“I began to think of myself as ‘Oga’s wife‘ and for the first time, we were both lost in the moment, and we kissed,” she recalled.
Before she could recover from the kiss, King announced that they were going for a “baecation” (a holiday/vacation with a romantic partner) in Singapore.
But this “baecation” turned into a nightmare.
“In less than a week, we were in Singapore, but that was where my nightmare began. After we landed in Singapore, King made love to me, and for the first time we consumed wine (alcohol). Subsequently, I was totally knocked out, I guess, because I don’t remember anything else.“
Rita regained consciousness in a hospital bed with one of her kidneys harvested.
According to Rita, she slowly emerged from a haze of unconsciousness, her eyelids fluttered to open, the fluorescent lights above her pierced through her brain like needles, and her head throbbed with a dull headache.
She said her mind was foggy, seeing beeping machines, IV poles, and wires snaking out of her body like tentacles. The air was thick with a scent of antiseptic, and fear gripped her.
“I woke in a hospital bed, and after several inquiries, I realized one of my kidneys had been harvested. I wept; I cried till my tears couldn’t flow anymore. Eventually, I had to heal before doctors could discharge me,” she said, her voice trembling.
The victim’s world crumbled.
She was discharged; immigration officials were already waiting at the entrance of the hospital, and she was bundled into a van. They drove her to the airport, and she came back to Ghana.
Her search for King led to a shocking discovery: he was a master manipulator, using the church as a hunting ground.
“I came to Ghana without my phone, and unfortunately, on my part, none of my family members knew King. He told me not to post our pictures when we were together, and as an obedient girlfriend, I did. So I only talked about him to my friends, but none of them had seen him before,” she said.
As she sat in the dimly lit room for the interview with The Ghana Report, her mind was filled with a mountain of questions and doubts.
“For me, a part of me tells me that maybe his relative or someone close to him needed a kidney transplant,” she whispered, her voice barely audible.
She paused, her thoughts drifting to the luxurious getaway to Dubai, where King had lavished her with opulence and attention.
“He spent a lot on me when we travelled to Dubai,” she recalled, her eyes narrowing as she tried to piece together the puzzle.
“I don’t know how much went into those trips, and I don’t know how much a human kidney costs, but I believe if he was into organ harvesting, he would have harvested all my organs and dumped me somewhere, and nobody might even know.”
She continued, “But I’m tempted to believe that he might not be into human organ harvesting, but found himself in a situation that warranted that.” The uncertainty gnawed at her, leaving her with more questions than answers.
She sighed, her shoulders sagging under the weight of her thoughts.
“Hopefully, one day, I get all the answers I need.”
The longing in her voice was palpable, a testament to her unyielding quest for truth.
As she sat there, lost in her thoughts, the shadows in the room seemed to grow longer, a reminder of the darkness that still shrouded her past.
Three years have passed, and the victim’s scars still linger.
Her trust is shattered, and her faith in humanity is wavering.
She warns others of the dangers of organ harvesting, even in sacred spaces like churches.
“Organ harvesting is real in Ghana; even the church is a target. So, I advise people to be extremely vigilant and not fall prey to such plots.”
“I also stopped going to church since that incident happened, and since then, I have serious trust issues. Do not trust anybody in this life except God,” she exclaimed.
Rita lived to tell her story, but not all victims survive to share the ordeal, a situation that makes it difficult for law enforcement agencies to track down and prosecute organ-harvesting syndicates.
“We hear about organ harvesting cases, but it’s rather unfortunate that the victims do not live to tell their stories and assist with investigations.” The Officer-in-Charge of the Anti-Human Smuggling and Trafficking in Person (AHSTIP) Unit of the Aflao Sector Command of the Ghana Immigration Service (GIS), Assistant Superintendent of Immigration (ASI.), Justice Kudzo Normeshie, told The Ghana Report.
In 2021, the Head of the Anti-Human Trafficking Unit, Chief Superintendent Mike Baah, raised an alarm over the troubling trend.
Again, investigator and security threat analyst, Mr. George Dosoo Doyen, told The Ghana Report there is a human trafficking syndicate operating in the West African sub-region that is in the business of abducting and killing innocent people for their organs and selling them in Thailand, Indonesia, India, Singapore, and other foreign countries for exorbitant fees.
“Nowadays, members of such syndicates use spiritual powers to hypnotise innocent persons, and when they touch any part of your body, the victim follows them wherever they are going.
“This organ harvesting is a booming business, and we need to pay close attention to this human trafficking menace because it’s draining us as a nation,” Mr. Dosoo Doyen fumed.