Peru accuses gang of killing to sell human fat for use in manufacture of cosmetics

[Al-khiyal]

Peru accuses gang of killing to sell human fat

LIMA, November 19, 2009 (Reuters) - Peruvian police said on Thursday they had broken up a gang that allegedly killed dozens of people and sold their fat to buyers who used it to make cosmetics. Four Peruvians were arrested on suspicion of kidnapping, murder and trafficking in human fat. The group stored the fat it collected in used soda and water bottles, which police showed reporters. "We have people detained who have declared and stated how they murdered people with the aim being to extract their fat in rudimentary labs and sell it," said Police Commander Angel Toldeo. In addition to those taken into custody, police said they were searching for others who bought fat from the gang or might have worked with it. Remains from some of the victims were found at a rural house in the region of Huanuco where the group worked, according police video. Police said they were investigating 60 disappearances in the area that might be linked to the gang. The investigation started this month after police heard about a shipment of fat that arrived in Lima by bus from Peru's mountains.

[Al-khiyal]

Gang 'killed victims to extract their fat'

November 20, 2009 -- Peruvian police have arrested a gang which allegedly killed scores of peasants, drained their bodies of fat and sold the liquid abroad as an anti-wrinkle cosmetic. Three suspects have confessed to killing five people for their fat, said Colonel Jorge Mejia, chief of Peru's anti-kidnapping police, but the number of victims was believed to be much higher and to date back decades. Two of the suspects were arrested at a bus station in the capital, Lima, carrying bottles of liquid fat which they claimed were worth up to £36,000 a gallon.

At a news conference police displayed two bottles of fat, which laboratory tests confirmed were human. "The fat was extracted from the thorax and thighs," said Eusebio Felix Murga, chief of police of Dirincri district. Police also showed a photo of the rotting head of a 27-year-old male victim discovered last month in a coca-growing valley. Medical experts said human fat had cosmetic applications to keep skin supple but were sceptical about an international black market. "It doesn't make any sense at all because in most countries we can get fat so readily and in such amounts from people who are willing and ready to donate," Adam Katz, a professor of plastic surgery at the University of Virginia medical school, told The Associated Press.

Police named the band the "Pishtacos" after a myth dating to pre-Columbian times of killers who slaughtered victims with machetes to extract fat. The gang allegedly operated in Huanuco, a rural province dotted with Inca temples between the jungle and Andean peaks. Six members remained at large including the alleged leader, Hilario Cudena, who has been killing to extract fluid for more than three decades, said police. Sixty people were listed as missing in Huanuco this year alone, though the province is also home to the Shining Path, a drug-trafficking leftist rebel group.

Mejia, the police chief, said his force received a tip four months ago about a trade in human fat. It infiltrated the gang and arrested Serapio Marcos Veramendi and Enedina Estela at a Lima bus station with a litre of human fat in a soda bottle. Their testimony led to the arrest of another alleged member, Elmer Segundo Castillejos, 29, who led police to the severed head and supplied grisly details: the gang would sever victims' heads, arms and legs, remove organs and suspend torsos from hooks above candles which warmed the flesh as the fat dripped into tubs below. Castillejos claimed other gangs were engaged in similar killings. The three suspects were charged with homicide, criminal conspiracy, illegal firearms possession and drug trafficking, according to Lima's superior court. Police said they were searching for alleged buyers.

[Bent_Bladi]

i think i'm gonna throw up

[Al-khiyal]

Peruvian officials express doubt over alleged fat smuggling gang

December 1, 2009 -- Peruvian police told an astonished world that a gang of killers melted human fat for use in cosmetics but it may have been the story itself which was cooked up. Authorities have cast doubt on the extraordinary tale of the "Pishtacos", a gang which purportedly murdered scores of peasants and drained fat from the corpses for sale in Europe.

The interior minister, Octavio Salazar, said police had not confirmed such a group was operating in Huánuco, a rural province dotted with Inca temples between the jungle and Andean peaks. "Really I do not want to say if they exist or not. What is certain is that there is an investigation under way. The police are continuing their inquiry." He denied the story had been a smokescreen for a police scandal. He made the comments amid Peruvian media reports that the investigation was unravelling and that one of the lead investigators, General Eusebio Felix Murga, chief of police of Dirincri district, had been removed from his post.

Police caused a sensation at a press conference in Lima last month when they displayed two bottles of apparently human fat and a photograph of a severed human head. They said they had infiltrated a gang, named the Pishtacos after a Andean legend of assassins who waylaid travellers, which sold fat to European cosmetic dealers for up to £36,000 a gallon. Three captured suspects had confessed to killing five people and gave grisly details of suspending torsos from hooks above candles, which warmed the flesh as the fat dripped into tubs below, said police. They suspected many more victims among the 60 people reported missing in Huánuco this year alone.

Medical experts doubted there was an international black market since human fat was easily available as a byproduct of plastic surgery. Police in Huánuco told El Comercio newspaper that they were surprised by the Lima press conference because they knew of no such gang. The president of Huánuco, Jorge Espinoza Egoavil, scorned the story, which he said was harming tourism in the region, and challenged investigators to prove it.