Egg-donation racket targeting poor women busted in Thane

Police have unearthed an egg-donation racket, suspected to be involving crores of rupees, that repeatedly exploited vulnerable women in Maharashtra’s Thane district, officials said.

The victims were offered Rs 25,000 to Rs 30,000 per cycle and repeatedly used as egg donors, resulting in physical exploitation. They were taken to IVF centres where the eggs were surgically extracted and sold for lakhs, they said, adding that so far, 20 women are believed to have fallen prey to the racket.

Three women have been arrested in connection with the illegal trade operating out of a residential apartment and a sonography centre at Joveli in Badlapur East, the police officials said on Saturday.

Egg donation is a fertility procedure where a woman provides eggs for another person to conceive, usually via IVF (in vitro fertilisation). The donor undergoes screening and hormone treatment, eggs are retrieved, fertilised, and transferred to the recipient.

The arrested persons have been identified as Sulakshana Gadekar (44), Ashwini Chabukswar (29), and Manjusha Wankhede (46). Following a tip-off from a victim to Thane Sub-District Hospital’s Chief Medical Officer Dr Jyotsna Sawant, a raid was recently conducted at Gadekar’s residence in Nano City building, the police said.

“We recovered photos of injections used in connection with pregnancy, sonography reports, affidavits with false names, fake documents, and evidence of financial transactions on the mobile phones of the accused,” a police official said.

The accused targeted needy women, paying them Rs 25,000 to Rs 30,000 per cycle. The victims were allegedly administered hormonal injections to increase egg production and were repeatedly used as donors, leading to physical exploitation, the official said.

“The process involved injecting the women to stimulate egg production and taking them for sonography. Once the eggs were ready, the victims were sent to IVF centres where the eggs were surgically extracted and sold for lakhs of rupees,” the official added.