BEIJING
A group of alleged bodysnatchers has been arrested in eastern China, where they have been charged with digging up female corpses for sale for reburial alongside the bodies of dead bachelors - so that the men will not grow lonely in the afterlife.
The South China Morning Post reported Thursday that 11 people were charged after a woman’s body was stolen from a village grave in Shandong in March and sold to a middleman for 18,000 yuan ($2,943) for a ritual “ghost marriage.”
They have been accused of the criminal offence of stealing corpses, which is punishable by up to three years in prison.
The Hong Kong daily quoted the lead suspect as telling Shandong Radio and Television that the fresher the corpse, the more it's worth.
“Years-old carcasses are not worth a damn, while the ones that have just died, like this one [a woman unearthed three months after she was buried] are valuable,” the man - identified only by the surname Wang - said in a clip.
“They could be sold for somewhere between 16,000 and 20,000 yuan.”
The Shandong report said that the woman's body was moved across several cities, before eventually being sold to a family in a nearby province for 38,000 yuan.
The ancient Chinese custom of “ghost marriages" is reported to date back to the 17th century BC, but still continues today in some rural areas.
Families often employ a matchmaker to help find a suitable woman for their sons, although poor families have been known to use non-human proxies.
According to state-run English-language Chinese newspaper the Global Times, old, heavily-discounted rotten corpses - often spruced up with new clothes and reinforced with steel wire - have been used, although some families have resorted to using silver statues or doughy human-shaped biscuits with black beans for eyes.
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