According to military police investigators, the suspects allegedly extorted money from mourning relatives to secure a place for their loved ones in the local cemetery in Tropea, a seaside resort town near Vibo Valentia.
The three men, caught in the act by hidden cameras installed by police in the cemetery, were charged with conspiracy, grave violation, desecration of a corpse, illicit disposal of special cemetery waste and embezzlement.
“The video images allowed us to document how these three men, without any scruples, extracted corpses from graves,” a police statement said.
“Some of these bodies have been dead for many years, while others were not yet decomposed.”
Police began to investigate last year when word began to spread in the resort of illegal activity in the cemetery and the possibility of getting a space there for a fee.
One resident went to police when after visiting the cemetery to see the grave of one of his relatives, he saw it had been replaced with another one.
According to investigators, the suspects almost always operated at night, during the hours when the cemetery was closed to the public.
The coffins were smashed with a pickaxe, the corpses stripped, and jewels removed with saws and hammers.
The bodies were reportedly disposed of in black plastic bags and thrown into rubbish bins or burned.
“The crimes were carried out with spine-chilling conduct and offending the piety of the dead,” Camillo Falvo, the Vibo Valentia chief prosecutor, told Italian news agency ANSA.
“They disposed of the bodies mercilessly and ruthlessly.”
A lack of space in cemeteries has become a serious emergency in Italy, particularly in the southern regions, and the coronavirus pandemic has only exacerbated the problem.
