Despite a ban on commercialization, fresh human placentas continue to be secretly sold in underground markets in China.

Underground dealers buy discarded placentas, with a strong smell of blood, from hospitals, funeral parlors and medical waste treatment plants for around 80 yuan ($12) each and sell them to illegal shops or for several hundred yuan after being processed, said an investigative report published on thepaper.cn on Monday, reports The Global Times.

The Global Times found on Monday that human placentas were being sold on shopping websites including Xianyu, a secondhand item trading platform from Alibaba. Most sellers use vague names to describe their products, instead of directly advertising them as placentas.

One of the retailers shared with the newspaper the information that he sold placentas for 360 yuan each on Xianyu.

“I could cut the price to 260 yuan if you buy more,” he told the Global Times reporter.

“We purchase the raw material at 2,000 yuan per kilogram," he said.

A mother in Shanghai, who requested not to be named, told the newspaper that after giving birth, she sent her placenta to a local shop near a hospital where it was processed into powder and put into capsules.

“It was for my father-in-law, who is in poor health,” she told the Global Times, saying that the processing was fast and cost less than 500 yuan.