Australia’s leading heart transplant surgeon died after being shot twice
in the head in a Sydney suburb last week. Police are investigating suggestions
that Victor Chang, 54, was being pressured by gangs involved in the sale
of human organs. One theory is that the gangs, known as Triads, wanted Chang
to transplant organs obtained from executed Chinese criminals into wealthy
patients.

Chang was head of the National Heart Transplant Unit, located at St
Vincent’s Hospital in Sydney. His murder calls into question the fate of
his research into an artificial heart. The heart was designed to sit outside
the body and to assist the patient’s own weakened heart.