Four people were arrested in Spain after it was discovered that they were selling corpses to universities for study purposes.
Police said these people sold the bodies for about 1,200 euros each ($1,300) and had a whole plot to mobilize and deliver them.
The four arrested took bodies from hospitals and nursing homes to sell them illegally through a funeral home.
In this way they forged documents and used the bodies of people less likely to be claimed; for example, foreigners or low-income citizens.
The arrested men, aged between 41 and 74, were accused of fraud and forgery. However, they were provisionally released while they await a decision from a judge in the city of Valencia.
“They forged documents in order to be able to remove the bodies from hospitals and dormitories in order to later sell them to universities for study purposes for 1,200 euros per body,” the state police said.
That’s how they were discovered
The investigation began in 2023 after it was revealed that a body had been irregularly removed from a hospital morgue.
Experts set out to find a funeral home that had submitted false health documents.
It emerged that two employees of the funeral home had taken the body to a university instead of organizing the funeral.
In this way, the records showed that the deceased had to be buried with donated funds; but it was sold without any family member’s consent.
Another similar case occurred with an elderly man who died in a nursing home but whose body was not buried.
During the investigation it emerged that some of the bodies had been cremated irregularly.
The agents determined that the funeral home received more than 5,000 euros for carrying out at least eleven cremations.
Apparently, these people placed the bodies in other coffins to save costs on cremation.
In addition, they managed to get rid of the corpses examined by the universities, thereby maintaining a healthy business.
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