The Investigative Court No. 1 of Valencia has two cases pending regarding the forgery of a private document and an official document uncovered by the police for the alleged sale of corpses. The first of these began in April 2023 and relates to the case of a French citizen who died in December 2022, whose body was picked up at La Fe hospital and subsequently transferred to a university for study purposes. The second follows the case of a man admitted to a nursing home who apparently approved the donation of his body three days before his death. According to police, who conducted an additional investigation at the end of last year, “investigators were able to demonstrate impairment of the man's mental abilities shortly before his death, as he suffered from severe cognitive impairment, which would not have allowed him to understand.” , what “the donation should be.”
According to the Supreme Court of the Valencian Community, the same four people were investigated in both cases: the manager of a small funeral home, the manager of the same and two workers. In the first case, that of the French citizens, the court agreed to the provisional release of the two perpetrators after recording their statements last July and “failing to assess sufficient criminal evidence on their behalf”. And he stood by the workers' allegations, believing there was “ample evidence against them of creating inaccurate documents to make economic gains.” As for the second case, according to the same sources, the procedure has not yet been substantiated in court and could not be consolidated due to the procedural stage at which the first case is on the verge of ordering the opening of a hearing. In any case, the opening of the trial will only be decided once the court in Valencia has decided on the appeal of the public prosecutor, who considers that the four defendants should be prosecuted.
According to the same sources, the investigation in the second case must clarify not only the donation signed by the man admitted to the nursing home, but also “alleged irregularities in the cremation of other bodies”.
According to the police, the operation consisted of forging documents in order 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.” According to the police, they billed a university 5,040 euros for carrying out 11 corpse cremations that had already been investigated; However, these cremations were not included in the invoices of the incinerators operating in the city.
The transfer of corpses to universities for study purposes is only permitted through donations, although the centers pay around 1,200 euros to the funeral homes for the transfer of the corpses and the subsequent cremation. According to the investigation, the defendants forged documents both when collecting and handing over the bodies.
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