Financiarul

The three persons remanded in custody by the prosecutors of the Organised Crime and Terrorism Investigation Directorate (DIICOT) in the affair of human eggs trafficking having the Bucharest private clinic Sabyc as a hub were brought on Monday before the Bucharest Court, for a proposed 29-day preventive detention ruling.

The prosecutors requested the arrest of Sabyc clinic owner, doctor Harry Mironescu, of his son Yair Miron and of Cecilia Borzea, the person in charge of relationships with customers.

The three are accused of having joined into an organized ring involved in the trafficking of human cells for material benefits.

In the same case, the prosecutors ordered the start of criminal proceedings against another 22 persons, of whom L. Natan and Z. Genie are banned from leaving Romania and other indicted are investigated at large.

According to DIICOT, Harry Mironescu, in his capacity as gynecologist and “de facto” manager of private clinic Sabyc in Bucharest, set the grounds for criminal activities perpetrated in exchange of substantial amounts of money, in violation of the legal provisions governing the procedure of harvesting and transplanting organs, tissues and cells of human origin for therapeutic purposes.

Assisted by his son Yair Miron, who is sole clinic partner, Harry Mironescu used his connections to physicians in Israel, specializing in assisted reproduction technologies; two of these, L. Natan and Z. Genia, were also charged in this case.

According to DIICOT, Cecilia Borzea was fulfilling the formalities related to the accommodation of the doctors, the beneficiaries of in-vitro fecundation techniques, and was recruiting directly or through intermediaries young women willing to undergo the ovarian stimulation and oocyte harvesting procedure.

The criminal group was on one hand identifying couples from abroad, unable to have children the natural way and seeking assisted human reproduction, and on the other hand, it was recruiting Romanian young women in the age bracket of 18 to 30 who, in exchange of 800 to 1,000 lei, agreed to donate the egg cells required by “in vitro” fertilization and hence undergo the artificial ovarian stimulation and oocyte harvesting.

The prosecutors raided the clinic headquarters clinic on Saturday and found 30 people prepared for carrying out ‘in vitro’ fertilization procedures.

The embryos that were to be implanted were obtained inside the clinic following the fertilization of the oocytes harvested for pay from the donor females, in the previous weeks and in absence of the approval of the National Transplant Agency for the accreditation of this activity.

The prosecutors seized two luxury cars found at the clinic and the amount of 200,000 euros.

Speaking about the human eggs trafficking at the Sabyc clinic, director of the National Transplant Agency, Dr. Victor Zota, told Agerpres that the law has been breached, as it provides that any cell transplantation shall be performed free of any material benefits.

Moreover, Dr. Zota said that the clinic is very well equipped and is also staffed with foreign specialists. To their majority, the clinic’s staff were in the know of the legal provisions.