A court in Poyang county, East China's Jiangxi province, sentenced four people to up to four years in prison for organizing trade in organs, Jiangnan City Daily reported on Thursday.

Poyang police arrested six members of the group and rescued 10 organ providers in July. They found that two of the organ brokers had once been organ providers themselves.

A 25-year-old man named Li, from the county, was among the four brokers. He sold one of his kidneys to a broker in 2009 in exchange for money to buy drugs. Another broker, named Deng, sold a kidney.

In June 2009, the brokers, led by Li and Deng, started looking online and in hospitals for people who either urgently needed kidney transplants or who wanted to sell their kidneys. It provided room and board and physical exams for the latter before arranging for them to undergo transplant surgery in a small hospital.

An organ seller can receive from 30,000 to 50,000 yuan ($4,800 to $8,000) for a kidney, which brokers can then turn around and sell for at least 280,000 yuan.

When police broke up the group, they also rescued 10 organ sellers who were waiting to receive transplants. The youngest of them was 18 and the oldest 27, and two were college students. All of them have since returned home safely.

Contact the writer at wangqingyun@chinadaily.com.cn