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Peru - Gang Members Arrested for Harvesting Human Fat

by Barbara McPherson | November 22, 2009 at 05:08 pm

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Three gang members arrested for harvesting human fat have confessed to killing five people. They claim that they harvested their bodies for fat which they then sold for high prices. When the gang members were arrested they were in possession of liquid human fat which they expected to sell for about $60 000 per gallon on this very black market. Gang members claim that the human fat eventually ends up in cosmetics made in Europe. Medical experts say that there is no market for human fat.

Elmer Segundo Castillejos, one of the suspects in the fat harvesting gang, described in grisly detail how the gang went about their business.

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 victims’ 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.

Six members of the gang remain at large, Mejia said. Among them was the band’s alleged leader, Hilario Cudena, 56, who Castillejos told police has been killing people to extract human fat for more than three decades.

While the gang members under arrest have confessed to murdering five people, there are reports of at least 60 people missing in Huanuco Province alone.