http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8369674.stm

‘Fat for cosmetics’ murder suspects arrested in Peru

Four people have been arrested in Peru on suspicion of killing dozens of people in order to sell their fat and tissue for cosmetic uses in Europe.

The gang allegedly targeted people on remote roads, luring them with fake job offers before extracting their fat to sell it for $15,000 (

If they offer free lipo, they can have my fat

o_O

Um.. yike..?

Do they sell Soylent Green?

I’m curious as to just how they would use human fat in cosmetics.  Is that somewhat like ambergris?

gray - 20 November 2009 12:39 PM

I’m curious as to just how they would use human fat in cosmetics.  Is that somewhat like ambergris?

Fat!

15K per liter?

yeah right

If fat would have made that kind of market price I don

From another article on it:-

Doubts about black market for fat

Medical experts were doubtful the trade of human fat would be lucrative.

Dr. Neil Sadick, a professor of dermatology at Cornell Weill Medical College in New York, said using a product with someone else’s fat carries the risk of an immunological reaction, which is why people who do use products with human fat get the fat from their own body.

Dr. Adam Katz, a professor of plastic surgery at the University of Virginia medical school, said he was baffled that there would be a black market at all for fat.

“It doesn’t make any sense at all, because in most countries we can get fat so readily and in such amounts from people who are willing and ready to donate that I don’t see why there would ever be a black market for fat, of all tissues,” he said.

It does seem weird here. Fat is effectively free at lipo clinics. Did they get caught up in some weird upban legend scam, that the idea there would be a market for it actually created a market for it?
Surely they could get more harvesting all their organs too.

Remember in Fight Club (movie and book) that they used lipo fat to make soap. Animal fat is prefered, but this is an old way to make soap

I am an ex associate - 21 November 2009 02:56 AM

Remember in Fight Club (movie and book) that they used lipo fat to make soap. Animal fat is prefered, but this is an old way to make soap

Then there’s when people turn into soap naturally. . .

I am an ex associate - 21 November 2009 02:56 AM

Remember in Fight Club (movie and book) that they used lipo fat to make soap. Animal fat is prefered, but this is an old way to make soap

And in the book, they used Marla’s mother’s fat.  She was saving it for some project of her own.

And it looks like the cops made it all up…

Peru’s police chief has dismissed the head of his criminal investigations unit amid suggestions that officers may have invented a story about a murderous gang of human fat thieves, perhaps to distract from allegations of police killings.

Police recently announced they had arrested three members of a murder ring who confessed to killing five people, extracting their fat and selling it to cosmetics companies in Europe.
Medical experts questioned whether such a black market could exist, saying fat taken from the body of another person has no cosmetic or medical value.

The allegations were pushed by investigations chief General Felix Murga and Colonel Jorge Mejia, head of the anti-kidnapping unit, who branded the ring the “Pishtacos” after a mythical pre-Colombian figure that killed people for their fat.
General Miguel Hidalgo held a news conference on Tuesday to announce Murga’s dismissal and said police are conducting an internal probe.

Calls to Mejia’s cell phone rang unanswered and police declined to put reporters in contact with Murga.
The macabre tale of the fat gang set off a media storm in Peru. The killers were said to have cut off their victims’ heads and limbs, removed the organs and suspended the torsos from hooks above candles that warmed the flesh as fat dripped into tubs below.

Murga and Mejia said fat thieves were believed to be responsible for 30 to 60 disappearances this year in central Huanuco province.
But the La Republica newspaper soon reported that police in Huanuco discounted the fat-stealing theory, saying the allegations made in the capital took them by surprise.

The fact that authorities charged the suspects with drug trafficking in addition to murder, conspiracy and weapons counts, also raised eyebrows.
Former Deputy Interior Minister Carlos Basombrio suggested some police cooked up the story to divert attention from a recently published magazine article alleging police had killed 46 suspects in 2007 and 2008 in the coastal town of Trujillo.

“My hypothesis is that they were mainly trying to cover up the tremendous revelation of extrajudicial killings of criminals in Trujillo made by Ricardo Uceda ... in Poder magazine,” Basombrio wrote on the political analysis blog Espacio Compartido.
At the time of the announcement, police showed off two litre-size soda bottles filled with a viscous, yellow fluid they said was seized fat that the suspects claimed was worth $US15,000 ($A16,220) a litre.

Authorities also displayed a video of a suspect confessing to killing and quartering victims for fat, along with photos of a decaying head and bones found in the jungle.
Police said the fat was apparently sold to intermediaries in Lima - allegedly two Italian nationals - then shipped to cosmetic companies in Europe.

They could not confirm any sales, however, and could only identify one victim by name.
Medical experts were sceptical, saying human fat is used in anti-wrinkle treatments but is always extracted from the patient being treated. Injecting fat from another person could produce a life-threatening reaction, they said.