They operated from Valencia and the police investigated them since last year
The National Police has succeeded in dismantling an alleged criminal network dedicated to the sale of human bodies in Valencia. The detainees falsified the papers to be able to extract the bodies from hospitals and residences and then sold them to universities for analysis for 1,200 euros per body, as reported by the Government Delegation in a press release.
Those arrested invoiced a university for 5,040 euros to carry out 11 cremations of bodies, once studied, which were not included in the invoices issued by any of the crematoria working in the city, the same sources have indicated.
They became suspicious when they removed a body from a hospital morgue without permission
The investigation began in early 2023 when officers became aware that the body of a deceased person had been removed from a hospital morgue illegally by a funeral home, so ‘they would have made falsifications in the registry book, as well as in the documentation provided to the Civil Registry.
After several inquiries, the investigators verified how two employees of a funeral home, after falsifying documents, would have taken a body that was in the hospital morgue and taken it to a university to analyze it in instead of having given him a grave.
The victim should have been buried in his place of residence in a charity burial paid for by the city council of the said Valencian town, however he was sold for the analysis for almost 1,200 euros, without any relatives or friend had given consent.
They found another case with the same procedure
Continuing the investigation, officers located another case with the same procedure. This time the deceased was admitted to a geriatric home and, apparently, it would have been the same man, three days before he died, who would have allegedly authorized the donation of his body.
In this case, the researchers were able to verify that the man, shortly before he died, had diminished mental abilities, as he suffered from severe cognitive impairment, which would not have allowed him to understand what the donation meant. In addition, this donation was signed so that the body was sent to a certain medical school, being finally taken to another, which paid more money for it, for this, they managed to trick health personnel into signing the change of destination of the body
The investigated were looking for dead people who had no family members, preferably foreigners or who in life had had precarious living conditions to commit the irregularities, since in this way they ensured that no follow-up was done on these donations by any family member, thus looking greater impunity.
