Heidelberg, Germany - A museum and workshop founded by celebrity German anatomist Gunther von Hagens were raided Wednesday by German tax investigators who check payroll levies. "The inquiry is not against von Hagens," a prosecutions spokeswoman said in Heidelberg. The suspect was the woman who is proprietor of the facilities. About 120 officers took part in the raids.
Von Hagens, 63, has exhibited his "Body Worlds" collections of naked human bodies solidified and preserved with injections of coloured resin to paying crowds in Asia, Europe and North America.
Critics charged that von Hagens was sensationalist and that the bizarre poses were disrespectful to the dead.
Prosecutors seized documents at the workshop in Heidelberg and the visitor centre in Guben near Berlin for evidence that taxes and social security contributions had not been paid for non-Germans employed in "plastination," von Hagens' term for treating bodies.
