“He is very much in India,” Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime) Rakesh Maria said today. “We suspect he will never leave.”

A big reason for Mumbai Police suspecting Kumar has not moved base to Canada is it would be hard for him to set up such an extensive kidney racket there, Maria said. “He will stay in India — it won’t be easy to conduct his illegal activities anywhere else,” he said. “In a country like Canada, it would almost be impossible to find (kidney) donors in large numbers. In Mumbai, and other Indian cities, he could pick up donors off the streets with the lure of fast money.”

When Mumbai Police had first raided Kumar’s Kaushalya Nursing Home at Khar, in the city’s western suburb, they had found a donor from Andhra Pradesh and a Yemeni recipient. “At the time, Raut promised Rs 2 lakh to a donor, and give them only Rs 40,000,” Maria said. “When we arrested him, he spoke Arabic and Turkish besides Hindi, Marathi and English. He also ran a taxi service that picked up these people from the airport.”