American Michael Mastromarino has pleaded guilty of running a body brokering busy where he made several million dollars.

From the BBC News:

Medical supplies boss Michael Mastromarino made millions from removing body parts from corpses and selling them for transplant illegally.

One of the bodies plundered was that of famous BBC broadcaster Alistair Cooke.

Thousands of people received body part transplants supplied by Mastromarino’s firm, Biomedical Tissue Services.

The New Jersey company shipped bones, skin and tendons to tissue-processing companies such as Regeneration Technologies, LifeCell Corp and Tutogen Medical, which are in turn facing hundreds of civil lawsuits.

The bones of Alistar Cooke were sold for $11,000 after his death from cancer in 2004.

See more at our Human Tissue and Body Parts market page.