Seven serving and two former staff of the Board of Management of the Chinese Permanent Cemeteries (BMCPC) have been arrested by the ICAC for allegedly soliciting and accepting monetary advantages for allowing improper exhumation.

The arrestees include two supervisors, five assistant supervisors, a former acting supervisor and a former assistant supervisor of BMCPC.

Also arrested in an operation codenamed " Mid-Summer Night ", which commenced last Thursday (August 28), are five tombstone contractors and four funeral agents.

Under BMCPC’s regulations, for those burial lots with a non-renewable lease of 10 years, families of the deceased are required to perform exhumation upon expiration of the lease. They usually enlist the service of tombstone contractors through funeral agents.

According to BMCPC’s instructions to its staff, should the human remains of a deceased be found not fully decomposed at the commencement of the exhumation process, the body has to be buried again for another six months, before another exhumation is to be carried out.

ICAC enquiries revealed that the arrested serving and former staff of BMCPC had allegedly conspired together to solicit and accept monetary advantages from a number of tombstone contractors and funeral agents.

In return, the BMCPC staff were alleged to have allowed exhumation to continue improperly despite the fact that the human remains of the deceased were not fully decomposed.

The BMCPC staff were also alleged to have corruptly assisted in advancing appointments for exhumation.

Enquiries are continuing.