An assistant to the forensic anatomical “asking for bitches” from funeral homes to facilitate the allocation of burials and repatriations. Hospital mortuary guards who demand up to 400 euros to deliver a service on a platter. Hearse van drivers who sell confidential information for 200 euros so that companies can locate relatives and win contracts. And, at the end of the chain, funeral homes suspected of paying bribes left and right and deceiving families in a fierce competition to get hold of the bodies. In dispute, bodies of immigrants, but not only. And, in between, envelopes, cash payments, bizum, tens of thousands of euros without justification… and the exploitation of grief.
An investigation by the Civil Guard into an alleged criminal organization that made a living from the repatriation of bodies of immigrants who arrived in Spain by boat uncovered in March the tip of the iceberg of a business that hides an underworld with few scruples. The summary of the case, to which EL PAÍS has had access, shows how among those investigated and their connections the exchange of photos of dead people in a state of decomposition and the payment of tips and commissions to anyone who helps get a new one is completely normalized. customer. It doesn’t matter with what methods.
The 14 investigated by the Civil Guard in March are presumed to have committed 14 crimes, depending on their participation: revelation of secrets, criminal organization, bribery, influence peddling, document falsification, crimes against respect for the deceased… They are implicated several employees and funeral home owners who work together, officials from the forensic anatomical department of Murcia and Cartagena, a hearse driver, intermediaries and the collaborator of an NGO dedicated to identifying the dead of the boats.
“The one from the Anatomical of Cartagena asking for bitches, my goodness, what an aunt, always the same, who has her daughter studying at the university, sailor fabric,” says the partner of a undertaker to her husband, according to the telephone interventions. “Listen, are you going to leave something? […] Do you know what happens? There are too many of you to share […] You could have a detail with us…”, this forensic assistant insists to the funeral home worker.
The operation takes off in Cartagena in November 2023, but the tentacles extend to Alicante, Murcia, Almería and the Balearic Islands, regions where the bodies of the boats leaving from Algeria and Morocco arrive. The Civil Guard begins to investigate who and why has taken a series of photos of corpses that have been used to contact families, facilitate the identification of the deceased and, then, convince them to contract with certain funeral homes. By pulling the thread, the investigators and the judge find that the marketing of photos and confidential information is a common practice among intermediaries, auxiliaries, NGOs and even the Civil Guard agents themselves.
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“The Civil Guard sent the photos to my boss,” Francisco C., one of those investigated for collaborating with the network and receiving money in exchange for information, told Judge Francisco C. Francisco, NGO volunteer International Center for the Identification of Missing Migrants (CIPIMD), had no doubts when pointing out where the information his boss received came from: from civil guards in Garrucha, Adra and Huércal (Almería), various posts in Cartagena, Alicante, Valencia, Ibiza, Menorca, Huelva, Málaga, Cádiz, Ceuta, Melilla and the Canary Islands. “They sent her to us to look for her family and then they were in charge of doing the paperwork.” [de identificación]”, he claimed. Sources from the Civil Guard already defended in March the “correct action” of their agents without evaluating the statements of those detained in court.
It is no coincidence that the business is dominated by foreigners. In Spain, almost half of the population has death insurance, according to the employers’ association Unespa. This covers expenses in the event of the death of a family member and leaves little room for funeral homes to step in. Insurance is a much less common tradition among foreigners and non-existent when dealing with immigrants on board a boat. Furthermore, in these cases the families usually repatriate the bodies to their countries, the most expensive service on the menu, which starts at 2,000 euros and even reaches 10,000. The intermediaries raffle off the families’ contacts. In 2023 alone, almost 500 migrant deaths were recorded on the route that leads to Spain through the Mediterranean.
A “closed world”
The investigation assumes that there is a ringleader, Rachid S., who through his associates in the world and in the consulates of Morocco and Algeria and through the network he has set up around him has achieved a kind of monopoly over the corpses of North Africans in the area, whether they are irregular immigrants or not. The investigations reveal how malpractice tarnishes the business. “It is a closed world that has its contacts in hospitals, forensic anatomical centers, emergency ambulances and officials. […]”, explains one of the witnesses in the case, owner of a funeral services company accustomed to hearing about commissions and scams in his profession. This witness declares that “on several occasions”, when they have collected the body of “Arab citizens”, they have called them to the office to warn them in these terms: “Hello, I am Rachid, you have collected some Moroccan, Algerian… That is ours” .
The officers tapped Rachid’s phone and searched his home and vehicles. They found bags with hundreds of bills, totaling 68,000 euros, and residence permits for almost a dozen foreigners. In his calls, transcribed in the case, the agents hear how Rachid lies to the relative of a deceased person, telling him that he is calling him from the Algerian consulate in Alicante and that he will send a funeral home for repatriation: his own, of course. He will charge you 6,000 euros. The suspect, now free, has several criminal records already expunged, including for posing as a doctor to perform clandestine circumcisions on children. His lawyer Jorge Novella maintains that his client has not done anything illegal, even if there is “ethically reprehensible behavior or irregularities.” He also considers it “obvious” that Rachid is not the head of any organization.
Rachid was not acting alone. According to the instruction, he worked closely with the Cura Varela funeral home in collecting the dead and distributing tips, and his name and activity were linked to a funeral home called Internacional La Paz, with offices in Almería and Jaén. Its owner, María José L., was another of those who fought to obtain North African corpses. It was sold as the cheapest and fastest, although the instructions leave doubts about how it was achieved. In the search of his house, several blank embalming certificates were found, easily falsifiable and necessary for repatriation, already signed by thanatopractors. María José defends her innocence and sees in this case the competition’s attempt to put an end to her business. “I never took advantage of families, I swear,” she maintains.
Dossiers from an NGO with photos of the deceased
Part of the information that the funeral homes needed to expand their business came from Francisco, the NGO volunteer, very well informed about the arrival of boats and the deceased that appeared on the coasts. María José and Francisco spoke often to share that information and that of the families. She, in principle, did not pay him, but there were other funeral homes, like Cura Varela, that did. In the records of Bizum de Clemente there is an income of 150 euros from a person in charge of this company, who frequented the morgues and command offices in search of clients, under the concept of “commission.” It had to be only a part, because the investigated person revealed in a call that they still owed him 700 euros. Francisco calls it “gifts,” although he also acknowledged to the judge that there were more payments with other concepts such as “gasoline.” During the search of Francisco’s house, NGO dossiers with photos of the deceased were found, some with notes that read “pending payment” or “paid,” for amounts of 300 euros. According to what Francisco told the judge, these were payments that he received from the Cura Varela funeral home for facilitating the allocation of that body.
The director of the NGO where Francisco worked, Mari Ángeles Colsa, has not denied that she receives donations for her work, but she rejected receiving “perks.” According to Colsa, CIPIMD has never accepted money in exchange for information. The NGO, which is not being investigated as such in the case, distances itself from the practices of the rest of the suspects and Colsa, whom its collaborator points out as the recipient of the images of the dead that were later used to pre-identify them, continues to ensure that its NGO never shared photos of corpses with families or on social networks. The documentation that she has in the summary and the networks themselves deny it.
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