Fourteen employees of the Kaohsiung Mortuary Services Office were indicted today on corruption charges for allegedly accepting NT$1.163 million (US$37,630) in bribes from funeral service providers to let families “cut the line” for cremation.
The Kaohsiung District Prosecutors’ Office today concluded its investigation, requesting lenient sentencing.
In recent years, the Kaohsiung crematorium has struggled to meet demand, and according to Taiwanese custom, families must arrange cremations on auspicious dates and times.
Photo: Taipei Times
Funeral providers therefore began charging a small “cremation service fee” of NT$1,000, which many families are unaware is in fact a bribe to secure earlier slots, prosecutors said.
Since 2019, the 14 employees took bribes from about 1,163 families over six years to fast-track cremations, potentially causing mix-ups in the double burial rituals performed after cremation.
Taiwanese families traditionally perform a double or second burial after cremation called “picking up the bones,” a rite of ancestor worship in which family members place the remaining bones in an urn.
As the timetables were rearranged, the scheme may have led to ashes being mixed up, a source said.
As DNA testing is not possible after cremation, there is no way to know if families have collected the remains of their loved ones or another of the deceased, they added.
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