Key Facts and Figures

• Researchers first reported on human remains being traded on social media in a 2004 report. Etsy became the first platfrom to ban human remains selling in 2012. eBay followed suit in 2016.

• Although major social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram have policies prohibiting human remains trading, these are rarely enforced. At the same time, social media algorithims are enabling buyers and sellers to find each other rapidly, and platform features are facilitating their commerce.

• Most buyers and sellers are collectors who perceive accumulating human remains to be a legitimate, if eccentric, hobby. Operating in a legal grey zone, they have established an international trade network with major nodes in Europe and North America.

• More than five years of investigation to date by two founding members of The Alliance To Counter Crime Online monitoring Facebook, Instagram and other major e-commerce platforms has identified thousands of instances of human remains being illicitly or suspiciously traded in more than two dozen public and closed groups that have a combined membership of more than 300,000.