Singaporeans turn to Indonesia's "mafia" for donor organs

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The middleman looks into the juice bar with a frown on his face, then leans over the grubby plastic table and whispers, 'I can take you to him - right now.' There is smoke on his breath.

It is shortly before midnight in the Annika Juice bar just outside the village of Galang, an hour's drive from Indonesia's third largest city of Medan.

With thanks, we decline the prospect of plunging into the nefarious underworld of the mafia organ traffickers at night.

'Be careful. Trust no-one,' the middleman rasps as he leaves.

The search has been prompted by a young man who donated part of his liver five years ago, thereby setting off the trade in organs in Galang.

The village hit the headlines in the summer when Singaporean department store tycoon Tang Wee Sung, suffering from a serious kidney disease, wanted to buy a kidney from a peasant boy in the area.