RiversideS13
11-21-2009, 02:30 AM
source: Alleged killers who harvested human fat arrested in Peru - The Irish Times - Sat, Nov 21, 2009 (http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/world/2009/1121/1224259238497.html)
POLICE IN Peru have arrested members of a gang which allegedly killed scores of peasants, drained their bodies of fat and sold it abroad as an anti-wrinkle cosmetic.
Three suspects have confessed to killing five people for their fat, said Col 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 suspects were held at a bus station in Lima carrying bottles of liquid fat which they claimed was worth up to $13,000 (€8,700) a litre.
At a news conference, police displayed two bottles of fat, which laboratory tests confirmed was 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 decomposing head of a 27-year-old male victim discovered last month in a coca-growing valley. Experts said human fat had cosmetic applications, but were sceptical about an international black market.
Police named the band the “Pishtacos” after a myth dating to pre-Columbian times of killers who killed victims with machetes to extract fat. The gang allegedly operated in Huanuco, a rural province dotted with Inca temples.
Six members remained at large, including the alleged leader, Hilario Cudena, who has been involved in the practice for more than three decades, police said.
Sixty people were listed as missing in Huanuco this year alone, though the province is also home to the Shining Path, a drug-trafficking left-wing rebel group.
Col Mejia said his force received a tip four months ago about a trade in human fat. Officers infiltrated the gang before the arrest of Serapio Marcos Veramendi and Enedina Estela at a Lima bus station with a litre of human fat.
Testimony from the pair led to the arrest of another alleged gang member, Elmer Segundo Castillejos (29), who led police to the severed head and told them the gang would sever victims’ heads, arms and legs and suspend torsos from hooks above candles, which helped fat drip 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. Police are searching for alleged buyers of the fat. – (Guardian service)
POLICE IN Peru have arrested members of a gang which allegedly killed scores of peasants, drained their bodies of fat and sold it abroad as an anti-wrinkle cosmetic.
Three suspects have confessed to killing five people for their fat, said Col 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 suspects were held at a bus station in Lima carrying bottles of liquid fat which they claimed was worth up to $13,000 (€8,700) a litre.
At a news conference, police displayed two bottles of fat, which laboratory tests confirmed was 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 decomposing head of a 27-year-old male victim discovered last month in a coca-growing valley. Experts said human fat had cosmetic applications, but were sceptical about an international black market.
Police named the band the “Pishtacos” after a myth dating to pre-Columbian times of killers who killed victims with machetes to extract fat. The gang allegedly operated in Huanuco, a rural province dotted with Inca temples.
Six members remained at large, including the alleged leader, Hilario Cudena, who has been involved in the practice for more than three decades, police said.
Sixty people were listed as missing in Huanuco this year alone, though the province is also home to the Shining Path, a drug-trafficking left-wing rebel group.
Col Mejia said his force received a tip four months ago about a trade in human fat. Officers infiltrated the gang before the arrest of Serapio Marcos Veramendi and Enedina Estela at a Lima bus station with a litre of human fat.
Testimony from the pair led to the arrest of another alleged gang member, Elmer Segundo Castillejos (29), who led police to the severed head and told them the gang would sever victims’ heads, arms and legs and suspend torsos from hooks above candles, which helped fat drip 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. Police are searching for alleged buyers of the fat. – (Guardian service)