Italy Arrests L.A. Man in Organ Transplant Case

Italian authorities have arrested a Hollywood man and accused him of operating an international organ transplant brokerage service on the Internet, it was disclosed Friday.

An FBI agent suggested, however, that James Cohan may be nothing more than a scam artist who never delivered on the promised transplants.

Cohan was taken into custody Oct. 5 after a sting operation that lured him to Rome, where he allegedly offered to arrange a kidney transplant for a large fee.

He was charged with violating Italian laws, which, like U.S. statutes, forbid the sale and purchase of body parts.

FBI agents searched Cohan’s home on North Vista Drive in Hollywood on Friday at the request of Italian police.

Cohan, who allegedly used his Hollywood home as a base of operations, had been under investigation by the FBI since 1994, when officials at the Regional Organ Procurement Agency of Southern California complained that people awaiting organ transplants were being solicited by him.

Similar complaints were forwarded by the Assn. of Organ Procurement Organizations in Dallas, the New York Organ Donor Network and the California Medical Assn.

Operating as Jim Cohan and Associates, he demanded a $10,000 application fee and promised to arrange transplants outside the United States to avoid “red tape, bureaucracy and fear of legal repercussions,” according to the FBI’s search warrant affidavit.

Fees for the transplants varied. Heart, lung and liver transplants cost $225,000, while kidney transplants went for $125,000.

There is no evidence that Cohan arranged for any transplants, FBI Agent Norma Ballard said in the search warrant affidavit.

There is probable cause to believe, however, that Cohan was “engaged in a scheme to defraud by making false representations regarding his ability to broker organ transplants,” she added.

The FBI’s Los Angeles field office said it is eager to talk with anyone who had dealings with Cohan.

Italian authorities became involved in March when a medical professor in Italy came across Cohan’s solicitations on the Internet.

Dr. Dario Alfani, an organ transplant specialist, was recruited to help authorities. He contacted Cohan, seeking a kidney for a fictional patient. Alfani and Cohan began communicating by e-mail.

In one message cited in the FBI affidavit, Cohan said he “sends people to Singapore, the Philippines, South Africa, sometimes China, and other Asian and Mideast countries,” for transplants.

Italian investigators, working through Alfani, arranged for Cohan to fly to Rome, promising him his $10,000 fee when he arrived.

During a videotaped meeting with undercover investigators at his hotel in Rome, Cohan reiterated his intention to procure a kidney for Alfani’s patient and provided further details about how the transplant would take place, the affidavit said.

At the end of the conversation, Cohan was arrested.