Seven American undertakers linked to a scheme to plunder corpses and sell the body parts for transplants pleaded guilty to undisclosed charges and have agreed to co-operate with investigators.

A leading US medical firm has quietly recalled hundreds of human tissue products destined for transplants around the nation that were supplied by a North Carolina broker believed to have a tainted history.

The scope of a US scandal involving body parts plundered from corpses has begun to emerge amid a flood of legal action, with one company alone saying it has distributed thousands of pieces of human tissue that authorities fear could be tainted with disease.

Four men have been charged with running a bodysnatching ring that allegedly cut the bones of BBC broadcaster Alistair Cooke from his corpse and sold them for transplants in a plot akin to “a cheap horror movie”, US authorities said today.