N.Y. Exhumes Bodies in Parts-for-Sale Ring

New York authorities exhumed the first of what are believed to be hundreds of bodies a body snatching ring allegedly carved up to sell for transplants.

The scheme, allegedly managed by Michael Mastromarino, a 43-year-old ex-dentist and head of Fort Lee, N.J.-based Biomedical Tissue Services, was halted last month in the wake of reporting by the New York Daily News, the newspaper said.

Funeral homes also were under investigation for reported payments of $1,000 per body, where family permission was not sought and medical records were altered.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned people who received transplants from the corpses are at risk from possibly contaminated tissue.

The first body dug up Monday was that of Esfir Perelmuter, 82, who died in February 2003.

The body snatchers forged documents to say the woman was 65 and that she died of heart disease. Perelmuter, however, suffered from brain cancer and diabetes.