An investigation that began a year ago led to the dismantling of a “criminal network related to the sale of corpses“, reports the National Police of Spain, from Valencia.

In early 2023, officers were notified “that a body had been irregularly removed from a hospital mortuary by a funeral home.” It was pointed out that forgeries had been made in the file, as well as in the documentation provided to the Civil Registry.

Twelve months later, the National Police announced that a criminal network had been dismantled in Valencia, explaining that “they had forged documentation in order to remove the bodies from hospitals and homes in order to later sell them to universities for research for 1,200 euros ($1,300) ) per corpse. .”

Four people were reported arrested in the grotesque case, all men between the ages of 41 and 74, the EFE agency reported. They had a relationship with a funeral home, where two people were in charge and the other pair were workers.

The nationals were accused of fraud and forgery of documents, but “they were provisionally released after making a statement, pending what a judge in the Spanish city of Valencia decides,” EFE indicated on Monday, January 29, 2024.

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Sale of corpses

That complaint from early 2023 allowed the National Police to verify “how two employees of a funeral home, after falsifying documents, seized a body located in the hospital morgue and sent it to a hospital for study university instead of burying it.”

Initially, the deceased was to be buried in his hometown “in a charity funeral paid for by the municipal council of the Valencian city.”

But the body was sold for nearly €1,200 for research without the consent of a family member or friend, police said.

The officers found another case with the same procedure, this time with the body of a deceased person in a nursing home. The answer received was that it was the man himself, three days before his death, who allegedly authorized the donation of his body.

The investigation brought everything down: it was found that “shortly before he died, the man’s mental faculties were impaired, because he suffered from severe cognitive impairment, which would have prevented him from understanding what the donation entailed.”

The work also established that “this donation was signed so that the corpse was sent to a certain medical school and eventually taken to another, which paid more money for it. For this they managed to deceive the health staff into the change of fate to sign the body.”

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Deaths without family and cremations

The idea was that everything would be made from the sale of bodies. Those involved “were looking for deceased people who had no relatives, preferably foreigners, or who had had precarious living conditions during their lifetime.”

In this way, “they ensured that the said donations were not followed up by any family member, thus aiming for greater impunity,” the National Police explained.

As if that wasn’t enough, the investigation found that the funeral home had billed a university 5,040 euros ($5,469) for 11 cremations, which was not reflected in the invoices of an incinerator in Valencia, EFE reported.

What was stated by the Unworthy Police: It seems that those investigated took advantage of the dissection and mutilation of the bodies to place them in the coffins of other deceased persons, carrying out the cremation of several corpses in a single burning, saving them on paying for and billing the university at the same time, reaping significant benefits from this practice. (JO)