United States President Donald Trump has begun construction of a $300m ballroom on the site of what was the White House’s East Wing.
The construction, which began on Monday, is the first major structural change to the complex since 1948. It involves tearing down the existing East Wing, which had housed the first lady’s offices and was used for ceremonies.
The work is being funded via private donations from individuals, corporations and tech companies, including Google and Amazon, raising uncomfortable questions about the level of access this might give donors to the most powerful man in the country.
A pledge form seen by CBS News indicated that donors may qualify for “recognition” of their contributions. Further details of this have not emerged, however.
How much will the new ballroom cost?
The estimated cost of building Trump’s ornate, 8,360sq-metre (90,0000sq-ft) ballroom, which he says will accommodate 999 people, has varied since plans were announced earlier this year.
In a statement made in August, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt indicated the cost would be about $200m. However, this week, Trump raised that to $300m.
Construction began during a US government shutdown and, therefore, without the approval of the National Capital Planning Commission, the federal agency responsible for overseeing these operations, which is closed.
US President Donald Trump holds up a rendering of the planned ballroom in the Oval Office of the White House on October 22, 2025 [Salwan Georges/The Washington Post via Getty Images]
Who is funding the ballroom?
On Monday, Trump wrote on Truth Social: “For more than 150 years, every President has dreamt about having a Ballroom at the White House to accommodate people for grand parties, State Visits, etc. I am honored to be the first President to finally get this much-needed project underway – with zero cost to the American Taxpayer!”
He added that he himself will also be contributing to the bill: “The White House Ballroom is being privately funded by many generous Patriots, Great American Companies, and, yours truly.”
However, it seems that at least some of the donations are being made as part of deals struck with Trump over other issues.
YouTube will pay $22m towards the ballroom construction as part of a legal settlement with Trump pertaining to a lawsuit he brought in 2021 over the suspension of his account after the Capitol riot that year when his supporters stormed the seat of Congress on January 6 in a bid to prevent the transfer of the presidency to Joe Biden. YouTube and Google have the same parent company, Alphabet.
The White House did not disclose how much donors would contribute. Other prominent donors – some of which have had recent legal wrangles in the US – were on a list the White House provided to the media. They include:
Amazon
Last month, the Federal Trade Commission reached a settlement with Amazon over allegations that the multinational tech company founded by Jeff Bezos had enrolled millions of consumers to its streaming platform, Prime, without their consent and made it difficult to cancel the subscriptions.
Under the settlement, Amazon will pay $2.5bn in penalties and refunds, fix its subscription process and undergo compliance monitoring.
Apple
US-based multinational Apple – which produces the iPhone, iPad and MacBook – is headed by CEO Tim Cook.
On Tuesday, Apple asked a US appeals court to overturn a federal judge’s ruling in April that prevents it from collecting commissions on certain app purchases.
Coinbase
Coinbase is the largest US cryptocurrency exchange. It is led by CEO Brian Armstrong.
On September 30, a US federal judge ruled that shareholders could pursue a narrowed lawsuit accusing the company of hiding key business risks, including the risk of a lawsuit by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the risk of losing assets in bankruptcy.
Google
Last month, the US Department of Justice won a major antitrust case against Google. A federal court ruled that the tech giant illegally monopolised online search and search advertising.
Lockheed Martin
Aerospace and defence manufacturer Lockheed Martin is headed by President and CEO Jim Taiclet.
In February, Lockheed Martin agreed to pay $29.74m to resolve federal allegations that the company had overcharged the US government by submitting inflated cost data for contracts of F-35 fighter jets from 2013 to 2015.
Microsoft
The CEO of the tech group is Satya Nadella, who earned a record $96.5m in fiscal year 2025.
Lutnick family
The Lutnick family is associated with businessman Howard Lutnick, who is also Trump’s commerce secretary.
Lutnick is the CEO of the investment firm Cantor Fitzgerald. His company Cantor Gaming has previously been accused of repeatedly violating state and federal laws, Politico reported in February.
Winklevoss twins
Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss are listed as separate donors.
The brothers are US investors and entrepreneurs, known for cofounding the cryptocurrency exchange Gemini and Winklevoss Capital.
Last month, the SEC agreed to settle a lawsuit over Gemini’s unregistered cryptocurrency-lending programme offered to retail investors.
Who else is on the list?
Other companies, conglomerates and individuals on the list include:
Altria Group
Booz Allen Hamilton
Caterpillar
Comcast
J Pepe and Emilia Fanjul
Hard Rock International
HP
Meta Platforms
Micron Technology
NextEra Energy
Palantir Technologies
Ripple
Reynolds American
T-Mobile
Tether America
Union Pacific
Adelson Family Foundation
Stefan E Brodie
Betty Wold Johnson Foundation
Charles and Marissa Cascarilla
Edward and Shari Glazer
Harold Hamm
Benjamin Leon Jr
Laura and Isaac Perlmutter Foundation
Stephen A Schwarzman
Konstantin Sokolov
Kelly Loeffler and Jeff Sprecher
Paolo Tiramani
Is the private funding of Trump’s ballroom ethical?
Constitutional lawyer Bruce Fein told Al Jazeera that the private funding violates the Anti-Deficiency Act.
The Anti-Deficiency Act is a US federal law that decrees the executive branch of government cannot accept goods or services from private parties to conduct official government functions unless Congress has specifically signed off on the funds.
The act protects the “congressional power of the purse”, Fein said.
“Think of this analogy: Congress refuses to fund a wall with Mexico. Could Trump go ahead and build the wall Congress refused to fund with money provided by Elon Musk or other billionaire pals of Trump?”
Fein added: “Trump is completely transactional. Funders of the ballroom will be rewarded with regulatory favours or appointments or given pardons for federal crimes.”
Martin Jarmond is not a particularly popular figure these days.
Some fans frustrated by UCLA’s winless football team are expected to wear “Fire Jarmond” shirts in blue and gold to Saturday’s game at the Rose Bowl against Penn State. One group has organized an airplane banner to fly over the stadium before the game, with a similar message directed at the beleaguered Bruins athletic director.
The list of grievances is a lengthy one, leading a group of nearly a dozen high-level donors to reach out to The Times about what they allege is a pattern of rampant dysfunction inside the athletic department that goes well beyond the surprise hiring and speedy dismissal of football coach DeShaun Foster on Sept. 14 after only 15 games.
Among other things, the donors also questioned Jarmond’s name, image and likeness strategy, high spending despite years of running up massive athletic department deficits and failure to fire coach Chip Kelly amid subpar results.
“What’s happening now feels like watching a trainwreck in slow motion,” said Scott Tretsky, a donor and season ticket-holder for more than two decades. “What we’re seeing isn’t just a rough patch. It’s institutional apathy. And if the administration doesn’t care, why should fans and recruits?
“This isn’t a casual fan speaking. I rarely miss a game. I’ve invested time, money, and emotion for decades, and right now, it feels like the people running the show don’t share that same investment. This program could thrive. It has the history, the fan base, the resources. But it needs leadership with courage and a real plan. Right now, we have neither.”
One misstep made a donor question whether operations inside Jarmond’s athletic department were even worse than they appeared on a surface level.
Ten days before a group of donors departed for a trip to watch UCLA’s football team play Utah in 2023, an email outlining the itinerary was sent with an unexpected attachment — a database revealing personal information and spending habits of the athletic department’s biggest supporters.
Included in the spreadsheet sent to several dozen donors was the home address, email address and phone numbers of Bruins football legend Troy Aikman. Separate columns included the lifetime giving and annual Wooden Athletic Fund contributions of more than 200 top donors such as sports executive Casey Wasserman, ice cream magnate Justin Woolverton and philanthropist Wallis Annenberg, with each donor assigned a priority number based on their level of generosity.
UCLA athletic director Martin Jarmond stands alongside UCLA football coach DeShaun Foster during his introductory news conference.
(Damian Dovarganes/AP)
The donor, who did not want to his name published because of the sensitivity of the data in the spreadsheet, told The Times he spoke with others who were equally incredulous about receiving such revealing information in the email from an associate athletic director for fundraising who is no longer employed by UCLA.
There was no apology or further communication besides a follow-up email from the associate athletic director sent 26 minutes after the first one, simply recalling the message. A UCLA athletic department spokesperson declined to comment about the incident other than to say the employee involved in the unauthorized distribution of information and his direct supervisor no longer worked for the university.
“I would assume with something like this where they knew what happened, they should just do something like say, ‘I’m so sorry, this was an internal working file, we’re doing everything we can’ to rectify it. Just something,” the donor who received the information said. “If I wanted to pitch something to Troy Aikman, I have the information to do it with.”
Soon after Jarmond and another athletic department staffer were informed that The Times was writing about Jarmond’s stewardship of the athletic department, five donors called to speak on Jarmond’s behalf. They cited financial constraints that prevented the athletic director from firing Kelly, Foster’s hiring as his attempt to make the best of a bad situation and a belief that Jarmond could help raise the resources needed to hire a far more successful replacement.
Other donors have already decided they are giving up on big giving.
As a result of his unhappiness with the way the athletic department is being run, one donor who was close to joining the 1919 Society that recognizes those who have given at least $1 million said he had abandoned that endeavor.
Part of his dissatisfaction is rooted in a dinner conversation with Jarmond at a Tucson steakhouse before UCLA played Arizona in October 2021. Asked to share his favorite UCLA sports moment, the donor said it was the football team’s having won three Rose Bowls and a Fiesta Bowl while he was a student in the early to mid-1980s.
According to the donor and two others at the table, Jarmond called the donor’s expectations unrealistic and said that historically, UCLA had won an average of seven to eight games a year, suggesting those should be the expectations going forward.
Asked about the exchange, Jarmond said that “without getting into specifics of my conversations with any one individual, my intended message whenever this subject arises is that dynasties in college football are increasingly rare. In today’s environment, with the implementation of revenue-sharing, NIL and the transfer portal, it’s harder than ever to sustain success at the highest level. But that doesn’t mean it’s not the goal. Competing for championships is and always has been core to our mission.”
Several donors questioned the commitment to NIL within Jarmond’s athletic department.
After one donor made a second large NIL contribution, he said, he was chided by one high-ranking athletics official who told him that his money would have been better spent going to the Wooden Athletic Fund that supports the entire department. Donors have criticized Jarmond for not getting Kelly to do more work to support the football team’s NIL efforts, leading to the team lagging far behind its conference counterparts, and was also slow to publicly recognize and support Men of Westwood, the collective spearheading UCLA’s NIL endeavors.
Several donors said UCLA has misunderstood NIL from the start, using small initiatives such as Westwood Exchange as a substitute for helping the Bruins stay more competitive with other schools that understood that pay-for-play was an accepted practice. Once revenue sharing started this summer, allowing the school to pay athletes directly, UCLA further de-emphasized the importance of having a robust NIL program even though it’s widely believed that the new model will eventually resemble the old one.
Jarmond pointed to UCLA’s partnering with NIL agency Article 41 to enhance athletes’ personal brands and social media presence as evidence of the school’s commitment to being on the forefront of the NIL space.
“We’re gonna provide whoever the next [football] coach is with the resources and a financial investment that we haven’t done before, quite frankly,” Jarmond said.
UCLA teams have won six NCAA championships under Jarmond’s watch and posted more conference titles last season than any other Big Ten team. The move to the Big Ten is also expected to provide additional revenue to help stabilize the athletic department’s finances, which required a university bailout and drew a sharp rebuke from the executive board of the school’s academic senate after running $219.55 million in the red over the last six fiscal years.
Jim Bendat, a men’s basketball season ticket-holder and longtime fan, said the athletic director faced some unique challenges that constrained his success with the football program.
“I have some sympathy for Jarmond,” Bendat said. “Money had to be an issue when he arguably should have fired Kelly immediately after the ‘23 season. Then the timing of Kelly’s departure put Jarmond in a nearly impossible situation. Basketball, baseball, softball and Olympic sports are doing fine. Is it fair to give credit for those successes only to the coaches and players, but blame only Jarmond for football failures? I don’t think that’s fair at all.
“Because football is the cash cow, that’s the big focus. I say give this AD another chance to get this right. It will be the biggest hire he will ever make, and he has to get it right this time.”
Criticisms of Jarmond, however, are growing louder and have been brewing for years.
Past concerns have involved a lack of communication when UCLA abruptly pulled out of the 2021 Holiday Bowl over COVID-19 concerns only a few hours before the scheduled kickoff. North Carolina State coach Dave Doeren blasted the Bruins for a lack of transparency about their roster situation that prevented the Wolfpack from having a backup plan, saying, “We felt lied to, to be honest.”
Jarmond said he was prioritizing the health and safety of the players and the Bruins had every intention of playing had they been able to do so responsibly.
Only a month later, Jarmond faced backlash for being slow to wade into a controversy involving a racial slur used by a member of the women’s gymnastics team. Jarmond met with the team only after Margzetta Frazier and Norah Flatley tweeted to request his help, and Frazier later described a statement that Jarmond released about the situation as “discouraging” based on the athletic department’s response to the scandal being “performative.”
Foster’s quick flameout after a little more than one season has led to a new opening inside the athletic department while leading a growing contingent of donors and fans to demand one more. A petition to have Jarmond resign or be removed has collected more than 1,400 signatures and a mobile billboard truck circulated Westwood last week with messages such as “UCLA Football Deserves Better Fire AD Martin Jarmond” and “$7 Million Buyout for UCLA’s AD? Failure Never Paid So Well.”
According to the terms of the contract extension he signed in May 2024 — at a time when UCLA was transitioning from outgoing chancellor Gene Block to successor Julio Frenk — Jarmond, 45, would be owed roughly $7.1 million, or the full amount of his remaining contract that runs through June 30, 2029, if he was terminated without cause.
“No single person has done more to damage the legacy and potential of UCLA football than Martin Jarmond,” said Ryan Bernard, one of the organizers of the mobile billboard truck. “From his inability to fire Chip Kelly to his unjustifiable, lazy hire of a recently departed running backs coach as head coach, Jarmond’s performance has been abysmal.”
Joypurhat/Dhaka, Bangladesh, and New Delhi/Kolkata, India – Under the mild afternoon sun, 45-year-old Safiruddin sits outside his incomplete brick-walled house in Baiguni village of Kalai Upazila in Bangladesh, nursing a dull ache in his side.
In the summer of 2024, he sold his kidney in India for 3.5 lakh taka ($2,900), hoping to lift his family out of poverty and build a house for his three children – two daughters, aged five and seven, and an older 10-year-old son. That money is long gone, the house remains unfinished, and the pain in his body is a constant reminder of the price he paid.
He now toils as a daily labourer in a cold storage facility, as his health deteriorates – the constant pain and fatigue make it hard for him to carry out even routine tasks.
“I gave my kidney so my family could have a better life. I did everything for my wife and children,” he said.
At the time, it didn’t seem like a dangerous choice. The brokers who approached him made it sound simple – an opportunity rather than a risk. He was sceptical initially, but desperation eventually won over his doubts.
The brokers took him to India on a medical visa, with all arrangements – flights, documents, and hospital formalities – handled entirely by them. Once in India, although he travelled on his original Bangladeshi passport, other documents, such as certificates falsely showing a familial relationship with the intended recipient of his kidney, were forged.
His identity was altered, and his kidney was transplanted into an unknown recipient whom he had never met. “I don’t know who got my kidney. They [the brokers] didn’t tell me anything,” Safiruddin said.
By law, organ donations in India are only permitted between close relatives or with special government approval, but traffickers manipulate everything – family trees, hospital records, even DNA tests – to bypass regulations.
“Typically, the seller’s name is changed, and a notary certificate – stamped by a lawyer – is produced to falsely establish a familial relationship with the recipient. Forged national IDs support the claim, making it appear as though the donor is a relative, such as a sister, daughter, or another family member, donating an organ out of compassion,” said Monir Moniruzzaman, a Michigan State University professor and a member of the World Health Organization’s Task Force on Organ Transplantation, who is researching organ trafficking in South Asia.
Safiruddin’s story isn’t unique. Kidney donations are so common in his village of Baiguni, that locals know the community of less than 6,000 people as the “village of one kidney”. The Kalai Upazila region that Baiguni belongs to is the hotspot for the kidney trade industry: A 2023 study published in the British Medical Journal Global Health publication estimated one in 35 adults in the region has sold a kidney.
Kalai Upazila is one of Bangladesh’s poorest regions. Most donors are men in their early 30s lured by the promise of quick money. According to the study, 83 percent of those surveyed cited poverty as the main reason for selling a kidney, while others pointed to loan repayments, drug addiction or gambling.
Safiruddin said that the brokers – who had taken his passport – never returned it. He didn’t even get the medicines he had been prescribed after the surgery. “They [the brokers] took everything.”
Brokers often confiscate passports and medical prescriptions after the surgery, erasing any trail of the transplant and leaving donors without proof of the procedure or access to follow-up care.
The kidneys are sold to wealthy recipients in Bangladesh or India, many of whom seek to bypass long wait times and the strict regulations of legal transplants. In India, for example, only about 13,600 kidney transplants were performed in 2023 – compared with an estimated 200,000 patients who develop end-stage kidney disease annually.
Al Jazeera spoke with more than a dozen kidney donors in Bangladesh, all of whom shared similar stories of being driven to sell their kidneys due to financial hardship. The trade is driven by a simple yet brutal equation: Poverty creates the supply, while long wait times, a massive shortage of legal donors, the willingness of wealthy patients to pay for quick transplants and a weak enforcement system ensure that the demand never ceases.
Safiruddin shows his scar following the kidney transplant [Aminul Islam Mithu/Al Jazeera]
The cost of desperation
Josna Begum, 45, a widow from Binai village in Kalai Upazila, was struggling to raise her two daughters, 18 and 20 years old, after her husband died in 2012. She moved to Dhaka to work in a garment factory, where she met and married another man named Belal.
After their marriage, both Belal and Josna were lured by a broker into selling their kidneys in India in 2019.
“It was a mistake,” Josna said. She explained that the brokers first promised her five lakh taka (about $4,100), then raised the offer to seven lakh (around $5,700) to convince her. “But after the operation, all I got was three lakh [$2,500].”
Josna said she and Belal were taken to Rabindranath Tagore International Institute of Cardiac Sciences in Kolkata, the capital of India’s West Bengal state, where they underwent surgery. “We were taken by a bus through the Benapole border into India, where we were housed in a rented apartment near the hospital.”
To secure the transplant, the brokers fabricated documents claiming that she and the recipient were blood relatives. Like Safiruddin, she doesn’t know who received her kidney.
Despite repeated attempts, officials at Rabindranath Tagore International Institute of Cardiac Sciences have not responded to Al Jazeera’s request to comment on the case. Kolkata police have previously accused other brokers of facilitating illegal kidney transplants at the same hospital in 2017.
Josna said her passport and identification documents were handled entirely by the brokers. “I was OK with them taking away the prescriptions. But I asked for my passport. They never gave it back,” she said.
She stayed in India for nearly two months before returning to Bangladesh – escorted by the brokers who had her passport, and still held out the promise of paying her what they had committed to.
The brokers had also promised support for her family and even jobs for her children, but after the initial payment and a few token payments on Eid, they cut off contact.
Soon after he was paid – also three lakh taka ($2,500) – for his transplant, Belal abandoned Josna, later marrying another woman. “My life was ruined,” she said.
Josna now suffers from chronic pain and struggles to afford medicines. “I can’t do any heavy work,” she said. “I have to survive, but I need medicine all the time.”
Josna Begum sitting outside her small cow shed [Aminul Islam Mithu/ Al Jazeera]
‘In front of this gang’s gun’
In some cases, victims have become perpetrators of the kidney scam, too.
Mohammad Sajal (name changed), was once a businessman in Dhaka selling household items like pressure cookers, plastic containers and blenders through Evaly, a flashy e-commerce platform that promised big returns. But when Evaly collapsed following a 2021 scam, so did his savings – and his livelihood.
Drowning in debt and under immense pressure to repay what he owed, he sold his kidney in 2022 at Venkateshwar Hospital in Delhi. But the promised 10 lakh taka ($8,200) never materialised. He received only 3.5 lakh taka ($2,900).
“They [the brokers] cheated me,” Sajal said. Venkateshwar Hospital has not responded to repeated requests from Al Jazeera for comment on the case.
There was only one way he could earn what he had thought he would get for his kidney, Sajal concluded at the time: by joining the brokers to dupe others. For months, he worked as a broker, arranging kidney transplants for several Bangladeshi donors in Indian hospitals. But after a financial dispute with his handlers, he left the trade, fearing for his life.
“I am now in front of this gang’s gun,” he said. The network he left behind operates with impunity, he said, stretching from Bangladeshi hospitals to the Indian medical system. “Everyone from the doctors to recipients to the brokers on both sides of borders are involved,” he said.
Now, Sajal works as a ride-share driver in Dhaka, trying to escape the past. But the scars, both physical and emotional, remain. “No one willingly gives a kidney out of hobby or desire,” he said. “It is a simple calculation: desperation leads to this.”
Acknowledging the cross-border kidney trafficking trade, Bangladesh police say they are cracking down on those involved. Assistant Inspector General Enamul Haque Sagor of Bangladesh Police said that, in addition to uniformed officers, undercover investigators have been deployed to track organ trafficking networks and gather intelligence.
“This issue is under our watch, and we are taking action as required,” he said.
Sagor said that police have arrested multiple individuals linked to organ trafficking syndicates, including brokers. “Many people get drawn into kidney sales through these networks, and we are working to catch them,” he added.
Across the border, Indian law enforcement agencies, too, have cracked down on some medical professionals accused of involvement in kidney trafficking. In July 2024, the Delhi Police arrested Dr Vijaya Rajakumari, a 50-year-old kidney transplant surgeon associated with a Delhi hospital. Investigations revealed that between 2021 and 2023, Dr Rajakumari performed approximately 15 transplant surgeries on Bangladeshi patients at a private hospital, Indian officials said.
But experts say that these arrests are too sporadic to seriously dent the business model that underpins the kidney trade.
And experts say Indian authorities face competing pressures – upholding the law, but also promoting medical tourism, a sector that was worth $7.6bn in 2024. “Instead of enforcing ethical standards, the focus is on the economic advantages of the industry, allowing illegal transplants to continue,” said Moniruzzaman.
The kidney transplant business has long been lucrative in India. In 2008, Nepal’s police arrested Amit Kumar, a 40-year-old Indian man suspected of being the mastermind of an illegal kidney transplant racket in India [Gopal Chitrakar/Reuters]
‘More transplants mean more revenue’
In India, the Transplantation of Human Organs Act (THOA) of 1994 regulates organ donations, permitting kidney transplants primarily between close relatives such as parents, siblings, children and spouses to prevent commercial exploitation. When the donor is not a near relative, the case must receive approval from a government-appointed body known as an authorisation committee to ensure the donation is altruistic and not financially motivated.
However, brokers involved in kidney trafficking circumvent these regulations by forging documents to establish fictitious familial relationships between donors and recipients. These fraudulent documents are then submitted to authorisation committees, which – far too often, say experts – approve the transplants.
Experts say the foundation of this illicit system lies in the ease with which brokers manipulate legal loopholes. “They fabricate national IDs and notary certificates to create fictitious family ties between donors and recipients. These papers can be made quickly and cheaply,” said Moniruzzaman.
With these falsified identities, transplants are performed under the pretence of legal donations between relatives.
In Dhaka, Shah Muhammad Tanvir Monsur, director general (consular) at Bangladesh’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said that the country’s government officials had no role in the document fraud, and that they “duly followed” all legal procedures. He also denied any exchange of information between India and Bangladesh on cracking down on cross-border kidney trafficking.
Over in India, Amit Goel, deputy commissioner of police in Delhi, who has investigated several cases of kidney trafficking in the city, including that of Rajakumari, the doctor, said that hospital authorities often struggle to detect forged documents, allowing illegal transplants to proceed.
“In the cases I investigated, I found that the authorisation board approved those cases because they couldn’t identify the fake documents,” he said.
But Moniruzzaman pointed out that Indian hospitals also have a financial incentive to overlook discrepancies in documents.
“Hospitals turn a blind eye because organ donation [in general] is legal,” Moniruzzaman said. “More transplants mean more revenue. Even when cases of fraud surface, hospitals deny responsibility, insisting that documentation appears legitimate. This pattern allows the trade to continue unchecked,” he added.
Mizanur Rahman, a broker who operates across multiple districts in Bangladesh, said that traffickers often target individual doctors or members of hospital review committees, offering bribes to facilitate these transplants. “Usually, brokers in Bangladesh are in touch with their counterparts in India who set up these doctors for them,” Rahman told Al Jazeera. “These doctors often take a major chunk of the money involved.”
Dr Anil Kumar, director of the National Organ and Tissue Transplant Organisation (NOTTO) – India’s central body overseeing organ donation and transplant coordination – declined to comment on allegations of systemic discrepancies that have enabled rising cases of organ trafficking.
However, a former top official from NOTTO pointed out that hospitals often are up against not just brokers and seemingly willing donors with what appear to be legitimate documents, but also wealthier recipients. “If the hospital board is not convinced, recipients often take the matter to higher authorities or challenge the decision in court. So they [hospitals] also want to avoid legal hassles and proceed with transplants,” this official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Meanwhile, organ trafficking networks continue to adapt their strategies. When police or official scrutiny increases in one location, the trade simply moves elsewhere. “There is no single fixed hospital; the locations keep changing,” Moniruzzaman said. “When police conduct a raid, the hospital stops performing transplants.
“Brokers and their network – Bangladeshi and Indian brokers working together – coordinate to select new hospitals at different times.”
Fields in Joypurhat, a part of Bangladesh that is turning into a hub of kidney trafficking [Aminul Islam Mithu/Al Jazeera]
Porous borders and the fallout
For brokers and hospitals that are involved, there is big money at stake. Recipients often pay between $22,000 and $26,000 for a kidney.
But donors get only a tiny fraction of this money. “The donors get three to five lakh taka [$2,500 to $4,000] usually,” said Mizanur Rahman, the broker. “The rest of the money is shared with brokers, officials who forge documents, and doctors if they are involved. Some money is also spent on donors while they live in India.”
In some cases, the deception runs even deeper: traffickers lure Bangladeshi nationals with promises of well-paying jobs in India, only to coerce them into kidney donations.
Victims, often desperate for work, are taken to hospitals under false pretences, where they undergo surgery without fully understanding the consequences. In September last year, for instance, a network of traffickers in India held many Bangladeshi job seekers captive, either forced or deceived them into organ transplants, and abandoned them with minimal compensation. Last year, police in Bangladesh arrested three traffickers in Dhaka who smuggled at least 10 people to New Delhi under the guise of employment, only to have them forced into kidney transplants.
“Some people knowingly sell their kidneys due to extreme poverty, but a significant number are deceived,” said Shariful Hasan, associate director of the Migration Programme at BRAC, formerly the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee, one of the world’s largest nongovernmental development organisations. “A rich patient in India needs a kidney, a middleman either finds a poor Bangladeshi donor or lures someone in the name of employment, and the cycle continues.”
Vasundhara Raghavan, CEO of the Kidney Warriors Foundation, a support group in India for patients with kidney diseases, said that a shortage of legal donors was a “major challenge” that drove the demand for trafficked organs.
“Desperate patients turn to illicit means, fuelling a system that preys on the poor.”
She acknowledged that India’s legal framework was aimed at preventing organ transplants from turning into an exploitative industry. But in reality, she said, the law had only pushed organ trade underground.
“If organ trade cannot be entirely eliminated, a more systematic and regulated approach should be considered. This could involve ensuring that donors undergo mandatory health screenings, receive postoperative medical support for a fixed period, and are provided with financial security for their future wellbeing,” Raghavan said.
Back in Kalai Upazila, Safiruddin nowadays spends most of his time at home, his movements slower, his strength visibly diminished. “I am not able to work properly,” he said.
He says there are nights when he lies awake, thinking of the promises the brokers made, and the dreams they shattered. He doesn’t know when, and if, he will be able to complete the construction of his house. He thought the surgery would bring his family a pot of cash to build a future. Instead, his children have been left with an ailing father – and he with a sense of betrayal that Safiruddin can’t shake off. “They took my kidney and vanished,” he said.
Reporting for this story was supported by a grant from Journalists for Transparency.
Reporting from San Francisco — When Hillary Clinton parachuted into Los Angeles recently, some of the well-heeled donors who swarmed her brought unsolicited campaign advice, while others brought ambitions of White House appointments. Susie Tompkins Buell brought a bag of dry-roasted chickpeas.
It was fitting that Buell, a wealthy San Franciscan who ranks near the top of the sprawling national network of Clinton benefactors, was obsessing about the candidate’s nourishment. Few people in the orbit of the Clintons have done more for their care and feeding than this 73-year-old fixture of Bay Area philanthropy and salon society who wanted nothing to do with politics — she didn’t even vote — until a chance meeting with Bill Clinton well into her adult life.
Buell not only has become a fundraising powerhouse since then. She has also become Hillary Clinton’s soul mate. Theirs is among a handful of friendships that have been key to fueling the candidate’s ambitions, providing emotional and financial sustenance. It reflects the uncanny Clinton ability to build and maintain unyielding loyalty from the people positioned to help them the most – even people, like Buell, who have no business interests or political aspirations the couple might advance. In many cases, the bonds have only solidified through the stresses of scandal, electoral disappointment and Democratic Party rivalries that the Clintons have powered through.
The network has been most valuable in California, where Hillary Clinton is raising more cash than anyplace else. How Susie Tompkins Buell became a hub of that operation is a uniquely California story.
Buell never thought she would be rich. She was but a 21-year-old who had chosen work as a keno runner in Tahoe over college when she randomly stopped by the roadside to pick up Doug Tompkins, a hitchhiking beach bum who, like Buell, had an unexpected mastery of entrepreneurship and getting in front of trends. The two eventually married and together built a fortune and a cultish following around the clothing lines they created: North Face and Esprit.
But it wasn’t until they divorced and Buell found herself at a retreat at the Esalen Institute that she got curious about the Clintons. Buzz about Bill Clinton at that Big Sur haven of mindfulness intrigued Buell. It was 1991, and the fledgling presidential candidate had inspired one of the speakers at the event, New Urbanist architect and thinker Peter Calthorpe, with his ideas on building and strengthening community, a topic of interest to Buell.
Susie Tompkins Buell, poses with a poster she designed supporting Hillary Clinton for president at her penthouse apartment.
(David Butow / For the Times )
So on a whim, and with a stroke of luck in timing, she dropped in at an event for Clinton while passing through Sacramento on her way home from Tahoe.
She quickly found herself at the head table. The conversation was memorable.
“I told him I was getting divorced and how I had worked with my husband all these years,” Buell said. “He really wanted to know what it was like, and he started talking about Hillary and how she was nervous that night because she was giving a speech at Wellesley,” her alma mater. They talked about the crushing poverty Clinton had seen on the campaign trail, Buell recalled, “and how much people were relying on government. I really wanted a president who would look out for them.”
She decided at that moment it should be Clinton. The next day, she wrote him a $100,000 check.
But the Clinton campaign was confused. Such large gifts usually come with requests for face time with the candidate or, at the very least, donor perks like ticket packages to the party convention and star-studded fundraising events.
“They asked me what I wanted,” she said. “I remember saying, ‘I want him to be president.’ I had no idea about how the money part of this worked.” Indeed, the only candidate who had ever received a cent from her before then was Mark Buell, the man who is now her husband and who long ago unsuccessfully ran for county supervisor. He got $500.
The donation to Clinton might have been a one-off but for the relationship that bloomed when Hillary Clinton approached Buell to personally thank her. The women clicked immediately, and Buell grew more enamored when she saw Clinton deliver an impassioned Mother’s Day address at Glide Memorial Church, a hotbed of leftist activism in San Francisco’s Tenderloin district.
“I was attracted to Bill Clinton, but as soon as I met Hillary, it was much deeper for me,” she said.
Buell hasn’t stopped giving to the Clintons since. More than $15 million has made its way from Buell’s bank account to the campaigns and causes of the Clintons. Untold millions more have been raised by her, often at her gorgeous Pacific Heights penthouse apartment, a mandatory stop on the fundraising circuit for prominent liberals. The menu that iconic chef Alice Waters prepared when Bill Clinton dropped by in March 1996 is framed in the kitchen.
“I can’t even count the number of events I have been to at the house,” said Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, who first got to know Buell years ago, when he ran a wine shop and was good friends with her daughter. “It is a perfect venue overlooking the bay. There is an austerity to it. It is an opulent building, an opulent view. But the space itself is austere.” The rooms are sparsely but carefully appointed. Pieces worth more than a small condominium share rooms with stylish items plucked from far-flung flea markets. Every window has a panoramic view.
“It is a perfect backdrop to focus less on the surroundings and more on the occasion,” Newsom said.
The occasion is almost always political activism.
“The environment, women’s rights, children’s rights, equality, all of this,” said Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer of California, ticking off in an interview the causes she has been involved in with Buell. “Susie comes through. She doesn’t say, ‘Put my name down,’ and take a back seat.”
As Buell got entrenched in politics, her relationship with Hillary Clinton began to move beyond it. Clinton writes in one of her books about a conversation between the two while the then-first lady was under siege by Congress amid its investigation into her Whitewater real estate investment. “My free-spirited friend Susie Buell said she didn’t follow all the dramas going on back in Washington, but she did have something to say to me: ‘Bless your heart.’ That was all I needed to hear,” Clinton wrote.
Much later, Clinton showed up at Buell’s apartment to meet her dying brother, a prominent surgeon who was staying with Buell while undergoing painful cancer treatments. “Most people would say, ‘I am sorry I never met your brother,’ or send their best. She just goes right into it,” Buell said. “She wasn’t taking advantage of him. They laughed. It was just sweet. It was one of the tenderest times in my life. … Her comfort with the situation was very moving.”
Buell said she regrets how few people see that side of Clinton.
“I remember once saying to her: ‘Can’t you just be yourself, Hillary?’ ” Buell said. “When there are not cameras around, she really lets it fly. She said, ‘You know what happens? They will get a moment of me expressing something and then say, “There she goes again, the crazy.” ’ Experience has trained her to be so cautious.”
But Clinton also sees a side of Buell that many candidates never get to see: the one that doesn’t talk politics.
“I don’t want to be one more thing she has to think about,” Buell said. “She knows who I am, she knows how I feel. We don’t talk shop. … She doesn’t need one more person to say, ‘What do you think about the Benghazi report?’ ”
This is the same donor who showed up at a high-stakes fundraiser for President Obama near the end of his first term and told him to knock off the small talk when he began to genuflect. Then she launched into a scold about his failure to get a landmark climate change bill through Congress.
“We don’t talk shop,” Susie Tompkins Buell says of her friendship with Hillary Clinton.
(David Butow / For the Times )
Newsom, who says Buell “holds your feet to the fire” when candidates get her support, let out a knowing chuckle when asked about her reluctance to push Clinton. As Buell and other climate activists fought for years to kill the Keystone XL pipeline, candidates who did not stand with them were getting an earful from her. Except Clinton, who stayed neutral through most of the battle.
“They have a deep friendship, and that transcends politics in many respects,” he said. “She has a loyalty to the Clintons that is extraordinary, and it is unbreakable.”
It’s not that Buell is star-struck. She is constantly in the company of celebrity. Meryl Streep gushed in an email about Buell’s “open, welcoming mien.” Waters happened to text while Buell was talking with a displaced former California reporter, and at Buell’s behest, recommended where in Washington to dine.
Bill Clinton emailed to say, “Susie has been my friend for almost 25 years,” and express gratitude “for her constant love and support for Hillary.”
And Gloria Steinem has also been Buell’s friend for years. She recalled in an interview coming to speak about feminism to Esprit employees in the 1980s, long before it was fashionable for big companies to try to raise the consciousness of their workforce. Buell’s then-husband vetoed her plans to advertise in the fledgling Ms. magazine, so Buell sidestepped him by writing a check to subsidize subscriptions for universities.
“She is a self-educated person in the best sense,” Steinem said.
Buell stopped selling clothing long ago, but she never stopped marketing her brand. Lately, she has been working on her “Badass for President” project, a more hipster-oriented line of Clinton campaign memorabilia than the less-daring goods sold in the campaign store. A mock-up poster in her office has the logo emblazoned over a black-and-white photo of young Hillary Clinton in stylish ’60s attire and a coffeehouse conversation pose.
The fundraising events she holds are among the fastest-selling tickets in the city — especially when they are at her apartment in the penthouse of a landmark red-tile-roof building on a Pacific Heights hilltop where the views are dreamlike and the history is rich.
Buell says she was one of the lonely Democrats in the old-money-heavy building when she held her first fundraiser for Bill Clinton there. She had to quickly patch together a bunch of linens to cover the picture windows that the president’s detail warned would be a security risk. Clinton joked that it was better to be looking at the linens than shattered glass. The Secret Service once got stuck in the utility elevator there for an hour after too many of the agents piled in.
They know their way around better now. There are at least three other big Democratic donors in the building now, and sometimes they team up to hold multifloor events. Obama once joked that he had been through so many times he was starting to feel like a resident. Buell expects that she and her neighbors soon will be holding another multitiered event in the building for Hillary Clinton soon. The haul from such events is in the millions of dollars.
“It works great,” she said. “As long as the Secret Service is clear that they can’t all pile into the utility elevator at once.”
And what’s next for Buell if Clinton wins? Probably more of the same, she said.
“I am absolutely not interested in getting appointed to something,” she said. “I have the perfect life.”
