In Spain, a gang that allegedly illegally traded in corpses has been uncovered: the suspects are suspected of forging papers and documents to obtain the bodies of the deceased in hospitals and nursing homes, which were then sold for €1,200 each.
This was reported by UNN with reference to El Pais.
Details
The National Police has dismantled a criminal network involving the sale of corpses in Valencia, Spain. According to a police press release issued on Monday, four people, all of Spanish nationality, aged 41 to 74, were arrested.
As indicated, the suspects falsified documentation in order to "steal bodies from hospitals and residential buildings to sell them to universities for study at a price of 1200 euros per body".
The defendants chose deceased people who had no relatives, mostly foreigners, or who lived in dangerous conditions
It is also reported that, for example, the funeral home involved in the case collected more than 5,000 euros from universities for at least eleven cremations that were never carried out.
To train and improve the qualifications of doctors at university medical faculties, there is a need for practical training with cadavers. Perhaps Spain lacks a sufficient number of cadavers for this purpose, according to media reports.
Addendum
In early 2023, the country's Ministry of Health issued an order to change the protocol that had been used for three decades in several public hospitals, which allowed funeral homes to manage and register deaths, even creating a kind of guardianship. The agreement with the Association of Funeral Directors of Valencia (Aseva), which united more than a dozen companies, was terminated. Currently, all the information required for decision-making by relatives or friends of the deceased is sent by medical professionals.
Valencia's two medical faculties are dependent on the public University of Valencia and the private Catholic University. Both emphasized that they work with safe protocols and do not buy corpses, but only accept donations.
The Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry does not buy corpses, but accepts donations in the form of vines, after fulfilling strict requirements
The Catholic University states that it "does not buy corpses, but only pays funeral homes the amount they set for transportation and removal of bodies, subsequent cremation, as well as for the preparation of relevant documents," the daily Spanish edition reports.
Recall
UNN reported that the autonomous community of Galicia in Spain faced millions of pellets along the coast of several districts of the region. At least twenty beaches were cleaned of five-millimeter balls at the end of 2023 by hundreds of residents and activists who came from other regions of the country.
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