Hong Kong cemetery officials took bribes to allow bodies buried in the overcrowded city to be dug up from temporary graves before they were fully decomposed, the city’s corruption body said.
A total of 18 senior cemetery managers, tombstone contractors and funeral agents have been arrested in connection with the racket, the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) said in a statement late on Monday.
“ICAC enquiries revealed that the arrested serving and former staff of Board of Management of the Chinese Permanent Cemeteries had allegedly conspired together to solicit and accept monetary advantages from a number of tombstone contractors and funeral agents,” it said.
“In return, the BMCPC staff were alleged to have allowed exhumation to continue improperly despite the fact that the human remains of the deceased were not fully decomposed,” it said.
Cremation is unpopular in Chinese culture, and many families choose to bury their dead in government-run cemeteries where they lease a plot for 10 years, after which the corpse is either cremated or re-buried in a smaller plot.
Cemetery supervisors are meant to bury the body for another six months if they find it has not fully decomposed.
But the ICAC investigation — codenamed “Mid-Summer Night” — found this rule was being ignored if bribes were paid, so the sought-after plots could be cleared and re-leased.
In some cases, the supervisors were also alleged to have brought forward the date for exhumation in return for cash, the ICAC said.
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