The court has two cases open for the irregular sale of corpses in Valencia

The Investigative Court number 1 of Valencia has two cases open for a crime of falsification in a private document and in an official document for the alleged sale of corpses detected by the police.

The first of them, started in April 2023, refers to the case of a French citizen, who died in December 2022, whose body was collected at the La Fe hospital and subsequently handed over to a university for study.

The second is followed by the case of a man who was admitted to a nursing home and who, apparently, authorized the donation of his body three days before he died.

According to the police, who carried out an additional report at the end of last year, “investigators were able to verify that the man's mental abilities were impaired shortly before his death, as he suffered from severe cognitive impairment, which would not have allowed him to understand what “the donation was supposed to be.”

According to sources from the Superior Court of Justice of the Valencian Community, in both cases the same four people were investigated, the administrator of a small funeral home, the manager of the same and two workers.

Regarding the first case, that of the French citizens, the court agreed to the provisional dismissal of the two perpetrators after taking their statements last July and after "not appreciating sufficient criminal evidence regarding them."

And he maintained the accusation of the workers, understanding that there were “sufficient evidence against them of the preparation of inaccurate documents in order to achieve economic gain.”

Regarding the second, according to the same sources, the procedure has not yet been judicially substantiated and has not been able to be consolidated due to the procedural stage in which the first case is, on the verge of decreeing the opening of an oral trial.

In any case, the opening of the trial will not be decreed until the Valencia Court resolves the appeal of the Prosecutor's Office who believe that the four investigated should be prosecuted.

According to the same sources, in the second case, the investigation will have to resolve not only the donation signed by the man admitted to the nursing home but also "alleged irregularities in the cremation of more corpses."

According to the police, the operation consisted of falsifying documentation in order to "be able to remove the bodies from hospitals and residences to later sell them to universities for study for 1,200 euros per body."

According to the police statement, they billed a university 5,040 euros for carrying out 11 cremations of bodies that had already been studied;

but these cremations were not reflected in the invoices issued by any of the incinerators operating in the city.

The delivery of bodies to universities for study is only allowed through donation, although the centers pay around 1,200 euros to the funeral homes for the transfer of the bodies and the subsequent cremation.

According to the investigation, the accused falsified documents both when collecting and delivering the bodies.