Boy sells own kidney to buy an iPad

A Chinese teenager has sold his kidney to buy an iPad and iPhone.

Xiao Zheng, from the country's south-eastern Anhui province, is believed to have met a broker on the internet who said he could help him sell his kidney for £1,825 (Yuan 20,000).

He is said to have left a message for the middleman saying: "I want to buy an iPad 2."

Zheng then travelled to Chenzhou in central Hunan province, where he had his right kidney removed in a hospital.

His mother told reporters she was devastated by the news.

She said: "When my son came home he had a laptop computer and an Apple phone.

"Where did all that money come from? Only when he could bear it no longer did he tell us.

"He said, Mum, I sold my kidney.

"When I heard it I felt like the sky was crashing down on our family."

The boy's mother alerted police after she found out but they were unable to locate the broker as his phone was switched off.

The hospital was not authorised to perform organ transplants, and claimed they had no idea about the surgery because the department had been contracted to a businessman from a neighbouring province, reports said.