Officials at a regional forensic bureau in Ukraine's Mykolaiv Oblast were detained on suspicion of being organ thieves, the country's security service reported on Tuesday.
The unnamed officials are accused of illegally harvesting tissues and body samples from cadavers for the production of biological implants, the report said. It did not elaborate on the implants or specify the number of suspects.
The officials “tricked” the relatives of the dead patients into agreeing on sample harvesting by playing on their despondent condition, the security service said.
The suspects were detained last week when loading harvested tissue in a car, the report said, adding that the officials had large amounts of money on them.
If charged and convicted, the forensic experts face up to seven years in prison. The investigation is ongoing.
In 2011, local media already accused experts of the Mykolaiv Oblast forensic bureau of mishandling dead bodies, but no criminal cases followed.
