A gang of 11 members in Shandong Province was arrested for digging up a female corpse and selling it to a bachelor for "ghost marriage," a Chinese tradition where deceased singles are buried with corpse brides to ensure their love life during the afterlife, media reported Thursday.

One of the suspects surnamed Wang claimed that he and eight others excavated a female corpse buried three months earlier in Tianqiao township and sold it for 18,000 yuan ($2,944) to a "matchmaking" middle man surnamed Liu in Handan, Hebei Province.

After a week of storing the freshly exhumed body at a local hospital morgue, Liu then sold it to an elderly bachelor in Wu'an, Hebei Province at the hefty markup of 38,000 yuan.

"Recently deceased females are more valuable and go for up to 20,000 yuan, but long-dead corpses where nothing but bones remain are worthless," Wang said.

The case is still under investigation.

In another recent case, three men in Shaanxi Province were sentenced to up to 18 months in prison for selling a female corpse in April, the people.com.cn reported.

Iqilu.com