Madrid:
Spanish police said on Monday they had arrested the owner of a Valencia funeral home on suspicion of selling corpses to university research units for 1,200 euros each.
The four suspects, two owners and two employees, also helped the university dispose of the bodies after research, burning them or placing their dismembered parts in other coffins ready for cremation.
Most of the bodies were of people without family members.
The suspects “forged documents to obtain bodies from hospitals and nursing homes and then sold them to universities for research at $US1,200 ($1,300) per body,” a police statement said.
The suspect is said to have sold at least 11 bodies.
In some cases, they even charged the university for cremation costs, but that never happened.
Police said: “They charged a university €5,040 for the incineration of 11 bodies following research, a fee that was not included in any invoices from any crematorium in the city.”
Police began investigating in early 2023 and discovered that two funeral home employees used false documents to remove a body from a hospital morgue and hand it over to university researchers rather than bury it.
The body belonged to a man who was supposed to be buried in his hometown, with burial costs paid for by the local council, but was sold for research without anyone’s consent.
Police said the suspects were “looking for deceased persons with no living relatives, preferably foreigners”.
In another case, the suspect allegedly managed to convince an mentally impaired elderly man to agree to donate his body to scientific research.
“The donation form stated that the body was to be sent to a certain medical facility, but it was ultimately sent to another medical facility,” which “paid more money,” the police statement said.
The suspect faces charges of fraud and forgery.
(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
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