When hospitals become a supply chain

June 28, 2026

Five people are now in custody, including foreign nationals, after a joint raid by the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) and the Human Organ Transplant Authority (HOTA) uncovered something most people would never imagine: an organized network allegedly trafficking human placenta out of the country, disguised as sheep organs. The raid in Islamabad’s F-7 sector turned up a disturbing haul — fresh, dried, and processed human placenta, all confiscated for testing. Investigators believe the material wasn’t sourced from one shady location but collected systematically from hospitals across Peshawar, Rawalpindi, and Lahore. That alone should worry us. If true, it means biological material was being quietly pulled out of medical facilities meant to serve patients, not feed an underground export business.

The destination makes the story even more troubling: Vietnam, where authorities believe the placenta was headed for use in pharmaceutical and cosmetic products. It’s true that processed placenta does have legitimate uses in some medical and cosmetic formulations, prized for supposed regenerative properties. But that’s exactly why its collection and export are tightly regulated almost everywhere — because human tissue isn’t a commodity you can casually package and ship once you label it as something else. And that is the real scandal here: the alleged disguise. Calling human placenta “sheep organs” isn’t a clerical error, it’s deception built into a supply chain, reportedly run with help from local facilitators who helped collect, process, and prepare the material for shipment under false declarations.

What this case really exposes is a gap many of us never think about: the ethical handling of biological material leaving our hospitals. If this network operated as described, it didn’t emerge overnight  as it required repeated access to multiple hospitals over time.