Humans harvested for fat to manufacture cosmetics?
In a story that might make you think twice before reaching for your lipstick, a gang has just been captured in Peru that have confessed to killing people to drain their fat and sell it to cosmetic manufacturers. While only part of the gang has yet been caught, these three members have confessed to five people but are suspected of many more. At least six more members of the gang are still at large. The murderers allege that human fat fetches $60,000 per gallon on the black market and ends up shipped and sold to European cosmetic manufacturers. Whether this is true is unclear, as some medical sources claim there is no real market for human fat, though it seems to be an odd and random claim by the captured men to allege. We remain cynical about the story ourselves, but it seems a good one to tell on the next camping trip at night when gathered around the fire.
Three suspects confessed to killing five people, but the gang may have been involved in dozens more, said Col. Jorge Mejia, chief of Peru’s anti-kidnapping police. He said one suspect claimed the gang wasn’t the only one doing such killings.
Mejia said two of the suspects were arrested carrying bottles of liquid human fat and told police it was worth $60,000 a gallon ($15,000 a liter). The fat was sold to intermediaries in Peru’s capital, Lima, and police suspect it was then sold to cosmetic companies in Europe, Mejia said Thursday, but he could not confirm any sales.
Medical experts expressed doubt about an international black market for human fat, though it does have cosmetic applications. A dermatology professor at Yale University, Dr. Lisa Donofrio, speculated that a small market may exist for “human fat extracts” to keep skin supple, but she said that scientifically such treatments are “pure baloney.”
At a news conference, police showed reporters two bottles of fat recovered from the suspects and a photo of the rotting head of a 27-year-old male victim. Suspect Elmer Segundo Castillejos, 29, led police to the head, recovered in a coca-growing valley last month, Mejia said.
Mejia said Castillejos recounted how the gang cut off its victim’; heads, arms and legs, removed the organs, then suspended the torsos from hooks above candles that warmed the flesh as fat dripped into tubs below.
