Peruvian police have arrested four suspects accused of killing dozens or people in order to sell the victims’ fat and body tissue for cosmetics in Europe.
The killers targeted local farmers and people on remote roads in the Huanuco and Pasco regions, enticing them with the promise of work before murdering them and extracting their body fat. Police say the killers sold the liquidised fat for $15,000 to cosmetic and pharmaceutical companies in Europe, although nothing has yet been confirmed.
The gang, called the Pishtacos after a Peruvian legend of killers who attack travellers on empty roads, may be responsible for over 60 disappearances.
Two Italian nationals are among the five other suspects still at large. One of the arrested informed police the gang leader, Hilario Cudena, had killed people for their fat for over thirty years.
Chief of Peru’s anti-kidnapping police Colonel Jorge Mejia said two men, who were arrested while carrying bottles of liquid fat reportedly worth $60,000, told him the fat was being sold to contacts in the capital city of Lima.
Human fat is typically used in anti-wrinkle treatments, but is extracted from the stomach or buttocks of the patient being treated. Police are currently investigating the possibility of the gang being linked to an international network of human fat traffickers.
Peruvian police are currently beginning prosecution of the arrested as well as looking for the fat buyers in Lima.