Entrance to the Montesinos funeral home in Valencia, also known by the commercial name of Rivato 1, whose workers are being investigated for the sale of corpses. Mònica Torres
The alarm went off early Monday morning.
The police sent a press release in which they reported the dismantling of a “criminal network related to the sale of corpses in Valencia.”
Immediately, the macabre imagery was triggered.
There were ingredients for it.
The alleged plot falsified 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 corpse.”
It gave the impression that there was an illegal wholesale trade.
In reality, there are two corpses and the criminal action is centered on a small funeral home in the city, as revealed by the police investigation of a case that reveals a series of practices linked to the manipulation of the dead and the need for their protection. study.
The alleged plot hatched above all by two workers from the Montesinos funeral home (also known as Servicios Rivato 1) began to be uncovered when the Albal City Council called the La Fe Hospital, asking about the body of a French homeless man registered in the Valencian town who He had died in December 2022. The distant relatives of the deceased had declined to take care of the body and the charitable burial procedure had been launched, according to municipal sources.
Without the wish expressed during the life of the deceased or the subsequent consent of family members or close friends, a body cannot be donated to science.
But the body never reached Albal.
The hospital reported it and the investigation was triggered, which ended with the initial arrest of four people from the aforementioned funeral home.
The body had been sold for the internship of Health Sciences students at the Cardenal Herrera University, as confirmed by the center to the police in January 2023. It left the hospital with falsified documentation supposedly by two workers.
In the mortuary book the name of another funeral home appeared that also provided guard services at the hospital, a common practice dating back decades in various Valencian health centers.
La Fe had an agreement with the Association of Funeral Companies of Valencia, which made up more than a dozen firms that worked in shifts, to manage and register the dead.
In May 2023, the Ministry of Health sent an instruction to all centers to change the protocol so that health workers are the ones to transmit all the information about funeral homes, if the deceased has not contracted the services or insurance, and It is the guards who handle the bodies, as happens in most hospitals in Spain, according to sources in the sector.
The General Hospital of Valencia, however, maintains this “funeral guard” of a UTE of six funeral homes until the award is concluded in November.
The police continued the investigation and located “another case with the same
modus operandi.”
The deceased was admitted to a nursing home and three days before he died he authorized the donation of his body, when he “suffered severe cognitive impairment” so he did not understand what he was signing.
The agents also discovered that "through deception" the alleged fraudsters got the health personnel to sign a change of destination for the body to send it to a university that "paid more money for it," according to the police note.
A few hours after the information was published, Valencian universities with studies in Medicine and Health Sciences stressed that they do not buy corpses and that the protocols are very strict in accepting donations, based on altruism.
You only pay for the transfer, paperwork and subsequent cremation of the body, once it has been used for dissection and study.
Sources in the funeral sector point out that some private universities pay more than others for these services.
The approximate amount is 1,200 euros, but it is not stipulated anywhere.
The average cost of a burial or cremation in Valencia ranges between 3,000 and 3,500 euros (including the coffin).
In this city there is no difference in price depending on the height of the municipal niche, but smaller nearby towns reserve “the fifth plot”, the highest niches for people with fewer resources or without family members, according to sources in the funeral sector.
Spain does not have a rule that regulates the process of donating bodies to science.
They are procedures that are carried out supported by voluntary procedures and ethical codes throughout Spain that not all comply with, even though they are exceptions, say university sources.
Spanish public universities receive more than a thousand corpses every year for scientific purposes.
There are no laws or rules that dictate how to do it, although the Spanish Anatomical Society, which brings together the majority of teachers of the subject in Spain, has a protocol of good practices.
But no one is obliged to comply.
“We are desperate to be regulated,” says the president of the society, Teresa Vázquez.
Without a law, which does exist in the rest of the countries of Europe, it is easier for bad practices to develop and for there to be loopholes that allow looting and for the sale of corpses to result in an accusation of falsifying documents, she points out.
To donate a body to science, it is necessary to carry out the procedure with two witnesses and specify the university to which you wish to send it or, in the case of death outside the community in which the center is located, authorize it to be transferred to other.
There are many public universities that put the collection of corpses out to tender since it is a repetitive service and they only authorize it after seeing the medical report and verifying that it meets the requirements for scientific purposes.
In the case of bodies of people without known relatives, it is the social workers of the residences, hospitals or town halls who, on behalf of the deceased, carry out the procedures but as long as the person has expressed their willingness to donate.
José María Toro, president of the Valencian residence association (Aerte), emphasizes that the fraudulent case revealed by the police is exceptional.
He explains that the vast majority of users, their family members or close friends, have to explain as soon as they enter the center if they have insurance and funeral home service and what the final destination of the body will be.
The legal hole is of similar dimensions that in Spain, for example, the importation of corpses is regulated but it is not limited and, therefore, the regulation does not indicate who can do it, so there are companies.
11 cremations
The police also found out that a university had been invoiced 5,040 euros for 11 incinerations, which were not reflected in the invoices issued by any of the incinerators operating in Valencia.
“They took advantage of the dissection and dismemberment of the bodies to place them in the coffins of other deceased persons, carrying out the cremation of several corpses in a single incineration,” the agents point out.
The Investigative Court number 1 of Valencia has two cases open for a crime of falsification of a private document and an official document.
The first refers to the case of a French citizen, who died in December 2022. In it, the court agreed to the provisional dismissal of the manager and administrator of the Montesinos funeral home for “not appreciating sufficient criminal evidence regarding them” after taking their statements in July and charged two workers.
An official of the company assured this newspaper on Monday that he had fired the accused worker upon learning of the facts and that the other person involved did not work for them during the commission of the same.
The second follows the case of the corpse in the nursing home and also the irregularities in the cremations.
At the moment, the four people from the funeral home are charged, waiting for the opening of an oral trial in the first case to be decreed.
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