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Friday, November 20, 2009

Peruvians Killed for Human Fat and Sold It to Cosmetics Firms

Four Peruvians have been arrested for murder in which their victims' fat was sold to European cosmetics firms, while more suspects remain at-large. One murderer is thought to have made a 30-year career of murdering for fat!

According to Peruvian police, a gang of murderers used job offers to lure victims to remote roads where they were killed. The killers then hung their bodies to extract their fat which police believe they sold, along with their tissue, to European cosmetic firms for about $15,000 a liter. Some of the suspects were said to have soft drink bottles filled with human fat on their person when they were arrested. Officials believe several others were involved, including two Italian nationals, and all remain fugitives. Police say the gang could be responsible for some 60 deaths in the region.

Many medical professionals are skeptical; they say human fat is readily available and only used under strict legal conditions. They doubt a black market for such exists and sincerely doubt it would go for the reported $15k. Police say some of the members have confessed to the crime, and produced two soda bottles of human fat they claimed to have taken from the accused.

The gang was called the Pishtacos, after a legendary gang which lured people to remote areas, killed them, and mutilated their bodies. Some versions of the legend have the Pishtacos extracting the fat from their victims. The Pishtacos is such a strong legend that it spans several facets of the Andean pop-culture (books, jokes, and more) and even made its way into mass pop-culture.

© C Harris Lynn, 2009

1 comment:

  1. Scary to say the least. Reminds me of the movie "Silence of the Lambs" where that psycho killed plus size women for their skin. And one has to wonder what do doctors do with the fat from liposuction operations?? Surely the doctors don't throw the fat out, as doctors want to make a buck every way they can.

    To say that fat isn't lucrative in the "black market" is one who wants to keep their head stuck in the sand and pretend that such evil doesn't exist in society. As usual, money is the root of all evil.

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