China’s Funeral Services Scam a “Grave” concern

China has multiple companies offering funeral services to locals that makes it a very big and profitable operating sector. These companies take care of all the pre-requisites during a funeral – from arranging the mourners to managing the cemetery operations. Everything is systematic and involves big moolah to keep the event tip-top.

But even though this business sounds lucrative there are multiple scams being unearthed by the Chinese authorities done by the companies offering the funeral services. If the news circling the local state media is to be believed there seems to be a big syndicate which is involved in stealing and selling dead bodies and, also, there is mass corruption involving unjustified charged and illegal cemetery operations done by managers of many funeral services companies.

Authorities in China are pursuing a crime ring for allegedly stealing over 4,000 dead bodies from crematoriums and medical labs so that their bones can be used for dental grafts. Allogeneic grafts are used when patients don’t have enough density for grafts. However, such bones are generally taken from consenting patients undergoing operations such as hip replacement.

As per a shocking revelation by a Beijing based law firm, in Taiyuan, capital of the northern province of Shanxi, local police had traced some criminals involved in stealing corpses from graves and selling them for profit. Human bones are of great worth in European nations who use them for medical purposes and to develop bone implants, and also sometimes to showcase in museums. Chinese police has seized over 18 tonnes of bones and over 34,000 semi-finished and finished products.

The spotlight was directly over the funeral industry once a state-sponsored media site, thepaper.cn (The Paper), ran a new piece over corruption involving Chinese funeral service companies. This news came out closely on heels of the scandal a week ago that caught national attention involving illegal harvesting, theft, and resale of corpses from funeral homes. Soon the social media was abuzz with multiple theories about the corpse raiders.

The Paper’s articles categorically questioned the working of the Chinese funeral company Shanxi Osteorad Biomaterial Co. (aka Shanxi Aorui) that was involved in illegally purchasing human remains from the provinces of Sichuan, Guangxi, Shandong, and other locations for manufacturinghuman bone grafts amount to 380 million yuan (CAD 73 million) between January 2015 and July 2023. The article further revealed that the funeral company was erasing its crime trailby commissioning individuals to pose as voluntary donors on registration forms and inspection reports.

Chinese officials quickly came into action and started investigating the operations funeral companies operating across multiple provinces involving Anhui, Guangdong, Jiangsu, Jiangxi, Jilin, Liaoning, Sichuan, and Yunnan. Media company China Daily reported that these investigations brought to fore multiple evidences of misconduct by managers of funeral parlors and related units. There were individuals who accused the funeral services companies of overcharging, staff corruption, encroachment, and illegal practices at the time of sorrow.

Chinese President Xi Jinping has been very particular of corruption in China in multiple sectors and has led a strong anti-graft campaign since 2012. Global Times, which serves as a mouthpiece for the ruling Communist Party, reported successful anti-corruption raids in provinces such as Anhui, Liaoning, and Jilin.

In the eastern province of Anhui, Chinese officials nabbed Zhang Duo, an employee of the Panji district funeral home in Huainan city, for violating the law of the land. In the southwestern province of Sichuan, disciplinary officials took action against 89 individuals in the city of Dazhou, detaining six in total as per serious charges. Additionally, an experienced funeral industry manager, Yang, was detained in Quxian county, although not much detail was disclosed. On similar lines, authorities in northeastern Jilin have also intensified efforts to address corruption and misconduct within the funeral industry in response to public complaints.

China’s anti-graft module, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI), expressed its commitment to President Xi Jinping’s vision of clean society and weed out corrupt and disloyal officials. The CCDI’s website maintains a strong stance against corruption, bribery, and the underlying issues that contribute to these problems.

Prof. Zhu Lijia from the Chinese Academy of Governance in his interview toGlobal Times expressed his concern on corruption in the funeral industry, and said, “the phenomenon of excessive and arbitrary charges, from the morgue all the way to the cemetery, has damaged traditional Chinese culture.” He added, “as a public service industry, the funeral service sector should not be profit-oriented.”