The trade is flourishing online, experts say, as bone collectors exploit legal loopholes to buy and sell human remains
In Australia, where it is illegal to buy or sell human remains , people sell photographs of the remains then add the bones as a “gift”.
Bone traders also use emojis, codewords, and hashtags to connect with each other and evade detection. “Medical” specimens have a kind of legitimacy because many were imported before law changes made importation of human remains illegal and due to limited exemptions for medical items. The managing director at Small and Whitfield, David Kabbani, says they have received about three or four skulls over the past 20 years that weren’t medical specimens. “We know the difference as auctioneers between a genuine medical piece, a skull used for medical purposes as opposed to something that’s come from nobody and nowhere, that we hand in ,” he says.
“Finally, while the requirement that the sold tissue be used ‘in accordance with the directions of a medical practitioner’ makes sense for therapeutic and medical uses, whether or not this applies to ‘scientific purposes’ is also unclear.”Macabre collector subculture
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