The Economic Security Department of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia for St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region has disclosed details of this scheme for trading biological materials.
According to law enforcement agencies, the management of Alexandrovskaya Hospital has for a long time facilitated the illegal export of body parts of the deceased for monetary compensation. The obtained biological materials were transferred to private companies and used in various fields such as cosmetology, dentistry, and surgery. The scheme mainly involved the bodies of asocial individuals who had no close relatives. For their "services," the medical workers received payments exceeding 500,000 rubles.
Moreover, representatives of commercial structures were allowed to conduct autopsies in the morgue without adhering to the necessary formalities. There have been recorded instances of body substitutions to prevent relatives (if they suddenly appeared) from suspecting the hospital management of illegal activities. Currently, several criminal cases have been initiated under Articles 286, 290, and 291 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation.
During the investigation, the founder of one of the commercial organizations engaged in the production of anatomical biomodels, as well as the head of the hospital's pathology department, were detained.
