Authorities have arrested five people in central China for their involvement in an illegal organ trading, after a 17-year-old boy sold one of his kidneys so he could buy an iPhone and an iPad.

Prosecutors in the city of Chenzhou charged the five suspects with intentional injury for organizing the removal and transplant of a kidney from a teenager surnamed Wang, reported the official Xinhua News Agency.

On Saturday, an employee at the Chenzhou Beihu District People's Procuratorate in Hunan province confirmed that prosecutors are working on the case and the five defendants are facing charges of intentional injury. The defendants facing charges include a surgeon, a hospital contractor, as well as brokers who searched online for donors and leased an operating room for the procedure, Xinhua reported.

According to the official Xinhua News Agency, roughly 1.5 million people in China need organ transplants. However, only 10,000 transplants are actually performed each year, which fuels the illegal trade in organs. China banned human organ trade in 1997, but there is still a thriving black market for organs, Xinhua said.

He Wei, one of the defendants, is portrayed by Xinhua as a broke and frustrated man, struggling to pay off his gambling debts. He allegedly asked another defendant to search online chat rooms looking for organ donors, and another person to lease an operating room to conduct the procedure, which took place in April 2011.

He Wei reportedly received 220,000 yuan ($35,000) for the transplant, gave the teenager 22,000 yuan ($3,500) and shared the rest of the money with the other defendants and medical staff involved in the procedure. Law enforcement officials in China are still investigating more suspects that could be linked to the organ trade, reported Xinhua.

The horrific trade was discovered when the teenager's mother found her son using his newly acquired Apple devices. Asked how he could afford them, the boy told his mother that he sold one of his kidneys, detailed the report.

According to Xinhua, the 17-year-old boy is from one of the poorest provinces in China - Anhui. The teenager resorted to such desperate measures so he could afford an iPhone, which starts at 3,988 yuan ($633) and an iPad, which costs 2,988 yuan ($474). Affording such high-tech products is nearly impossible in the poor province.

(reported by Alexandra Burlacu, edited by Dave Clark)