The reported theft and illegal sale of thousands of human corpses for use as raw material in bone graft procedures has shocked the Chinese public and sparked a breathtaking wave of censorship online. Last Thursday, a Beijing lawyer, Yi Shenghua, shared on Weibo that prosecutors in Shanxi are investigating Shanxi Osteorad Biomaterial Co. Ltd. for allegedly purchasing over 4,000 human bodies from funeral parlors and crematoriums. The bodies were dismembered and processed into biomaterial for allogenic bone grafts, used primarily in dental implants. Follow-up reports on the allegations soon appeared in a number of major Chinese outlets—including state broadcaster CCTV, influential state-backed digital outlet The Paper, and pioneering investigative outlet Caixin—but censors quickly took down these and other outlets’ coverage of the scandal. Dozens of related hashtags went viral on Weibo until they, too, were deleted by censors. CDT has archived and translated 21 hashtags that were removed by censors. The first batch of censored hashtags were related to the bare essentials of the case, the illegal procurement of human remains:
#selling corpses
#Shanxi corpses
#corpse trafficking
#selling remains
#funeral home sells corpses [Chinese]
Other censored hashtags reflected developments in the case, including official responses and more detail on the number of suspects:
#75 people suspected of stealing and selling thousands of corpses for use as implant material
#official response to reports of the theft and sale of thousands of corpses
#local government responds to reports of the theft and sale of thousands of corpses for use as implant material [Chinese]
A number of the deleted hashtags focused on Shanxi Osteorad Biomaterial and its general manager, the apparent ringleader of the body-purchasing scheme. He is alleged to have controlled four funeral homes in Yunnan, Chongqing, Sichuan, and Guizhou, and to have diverted over 4,0000 bodies from those funeral homes’ crematoriums to his biomedical company in Shanxi:
#Shanxi medical company purchased cadavers from funeral homes
#investigating Shanxi Osteorad Biomaterial Co., the company suspected of illegally selling corpses
#illegal corpse sales earned company 380 million yuan over eight years
#unmasking the mastermind behind the resale of 4,000 corpses
#business illegally purchased cadaver limbs for use as implant material
#suspect controlled multiple crematoriums, stole 4000 corpses [Chinese]
A number of censored hashtags revealed the national scope of the scandal. A branch of the state-owned enterprise Sinopharm was implicated in the plot (it has since denied any involvement with Shanxi Osteorad), as were hospitals and funeral parlors across China:
#Sinopharm responds to allegations that it purchased products from company that bought corpses to create medical implant materials
#Sinopharm Group Quanzhou Co., Ltd. responds
#doctor at the Affiliated Hospital of Qingdao embroiled in stolen-corpses-for-cash case
#Guilin medical school suspected of selling over 300 corpses
#funeral parlor accused of selling corpses for 900 yuan apiece [Chinese]
A final censored hashtag was related to Yi Shenghua, the lawyer who originally shared news of the investigation to Weibo. After his initial post sharing the grisly findings of the investigation, he posted again thanking the journalists who had followed up on his claims. Soon afterward, there was censorship of the hashtag #lawyer who exposed theft and sale of corpses speaks out again.
While Weibo censors diligently erased information about the Shanxi corpse trafficking case, the platform allowed another hashtag (#American funeral parlor fined $950 million for mishandling rotting corpses) to go viral. In 2023, two Colorado funeral home owners were arrested for reneging on the “green burials” they had promised, abandoning the bodies they were entrusted with, and letting 190 corpses pile up in a room-temperature storage facility. Last Monday, a judge ordered the two to pay the families of the deceased $950 million dollars for mishandling their relatives’ remains. Some Weibo users, perhaps viewing the hashtag as a cynical ploy to distract the public from a scandal closer to home, wryly commented on the enormous payout for the mishandling of a mere 190 corpses—leaving unspoken the question of what an appropriate punishment might be for the mishandling of 4000 corpses.
