World Bulletin / News Desk

A Turkish court early Saturday ordered the extradition of a suspected Israeli organ trafficker who is wanted by Interpol, Turkish media reported. 

Boris Volfman was stopped at Istanbul's Ataturk airport on Friday after flying in from Bangkok on suspicions of organ trafficking and fraud, the Dogan news agency reported. 

Early on Saturday, the court formalised Volfman's arrest and ordered his extradition to Israel after a 40-day arrest period, media reports said, describing him as the head of the trafficking ring. 

The reports said Volfman was born in the Ukraine but holds Israeli citizenship, with police launching a large-scale hunt to uncover his contacts in Istanbul. 

His alleged targets were reportedly Syrian refugees in Turkey. 

"The ring led by Volfman established contacts with some Syrians in order to buy the organs of Syrian refugees facing hardship," the Vatan newspaper reported.

According to an article in Haaretz, a former soccer player for Hapoel Beersheba, Uzi Shmueli, was arrested in Cyprus on similar charges. Shmueli was allegedly the head of a crime syndicate that lured struggling young Israeli women, mostly from the south of the country, to Turkey and paid them NIS 20,000 (some $5,750) for a kidney.

In 2013 an alleged organ trafficking ring was exposed by Costa Rican police. The syndicate was working in conjunction with Israeli doctors, according to Haaretz. According to the report, the doctors had performed surgery removing kidneys of some Costa Ricans who sold their organs.. 

There was no immediate comment on the case from Turkish officials.