Chinese prosecutors are reportedly investigating a criminal network which allegedly stole thousands of bodies from crematoriums and medical laboratories and used them to produce biomaterials, according to a well-known criminal lawyer.
Yi Shenghua, who published the details of the case on social media on Thursday, claims that police in Taiyuan, the capital of China’s northern province of Shanxi, have been investigating allegations that a company called Shanxi Aorui Biomaterials had been illegally buying corpses from several provinces and using them to produce allogenic bone grafts and dental grafts. The case also reportedly involves the owners and operators of Shanxi Osteorad Biomaterial Co. and Sichuan Hengpu Technology Co, according to Newsweek.
Bone grafting is typically used in the medical industry to repair injuries such as severe fractures. Allogenic bone grafts, or allografts, are usually used when a patient does not have sufficient bone density for what is called an autograft. In such cases, the necessary bone is taken from consenting patients, who undergo operations such as hip replacements, or from cadavers, which also requires donor consent.
The documents shared by Yi suggest that the criminal network, which allegedly involved several state-affiliated companies, had been operating for more than a decade and had made some $53 million dollars in revenue from the scheme during this period. In the documents, it is stated that Chinese police had seized over 18 metric tons of bones and more than 34,000 semi-finished or finished products.
It’s also reported that out of the 75 suspects detained in the case, one with the surname Su, who was the general manager at Shanxi Aorui Biomaterials, had confessed to stealing more than 4,000 human bodies from crematoriums in the provinces of Yunnan, Changqing, Guizhou and Sichuan.
A spokesman for the Taiyuan procuratorate has confirmed to the South China Morning Post that prosecutors were indeed investigating allegations that a crime ring was “stealing and reselling corpses for profit.” He did not, however, share any more details about the case, explaining that the investigation was “rather complicated” and still needed more time.