Case Involving Repatriation Scams and Morgue Detections

A case is underway alleging that individuals accelerated identification procedures and the repatriation of remains of migrants who died aboard boats in exchange for money, according to sources close to the matter. The head of Investigation Court No. 4 in Cartagena, in charge of the case, ordered two of the four suspects into provisional prison without bail on Monday, as reported by the Murcia High Court. The court press office explained that an illicit network might be earning illicit gains through mediation of repatriation and funeral procedures.

The other two suspects were released with charges but must surrender their passports and appear before the court regularly.

The Murcia High Court noted that the suspects are being investigated for belonging to a criminal organization, fraud, falsification of a public document, and offenses against the dignity of the deceased.

During the day, the magistrate also took statements from four individuals involved in these proceedings, including two justice administration officials assigned to the Institute of Legal Medicine.

Fotos in the morgue

There are three methods to identify a person who arrives dead at the morgue: DNA, fingerprints, and dental records. In the region, as in Spain, several DNA databases exist that are accessible to all police bodies, with records dating back to the 1960s.

According to the Institute of Legal Medicine, they sometimes receive requests from embassies or consulates of certain African countries and, after necessary verifications, hand the body over to relatives for burial.

For a body to leave the facility, a claimant must be found and the judge must grant permission. In these cases, relatives often do not even know the person has died.

What might the suspects have done? Sources close to the investigation describe photographs showing cadavers lying on an autopsy table. Allegedly they acted outside the law by showing these images to relatives abroad who wished to know the fate of their loved one. Such actions could enable the identification of the body while bypassing proper protocols.

Trece registros

The ongoing inquiries, which remained under a secret of proceedings until this Monday, also involve alleged offenses of revealing secrets and omitting the duty to pursue crimes, among others.

Last Saturday, with judicial authorization, thirteen entries and searches were carried out in the region (Murcia, Molina de Segura, and Cartagena) and in the Andalusian provinces of Jaén and Almería.

Cuerpos sin identificar

According to the National Center for the Missing (CNDES) annual report of the Interior Ministry, Murcia led Spain in unidentified corpses in 2022, with 22 bodies that remained unidentified by the summer. The bodies were taken to the Institute of Legal Medicine in Murcia for processing and storage in one of the cold chambers near the Reina Sofía hospital, awaiting any person to take responsibility for them.

Murcia stands at the top among regions in Spain for cadavers found in a year, totaling 22 of 209 across the country. Most are believed to be the remains of migrants found adrift at sea, presumed to have died when their raft sank while attempting to reach Europe.

By province, Murcia leads with 10.53% of findings, followed by Almería, Alicante, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, and the Balearic Islands. These locations are coastal, aligning with statistics that point to cadavers of African migrants whose vessels sank at sea.