One Peruvian criminal enterprise sounds like something from horror or pulp fiction: criminals kill victims, extract the corpses' fat, and sell in on the black market.
The gang allegedly targeted people on remote roads, luring them with fake job offers before killing them and extracting their fat.
The results were sold to cosmetics companies. Like Fight Club, people end up using people products on their flesh.
This isn't a new thing, or a fad, but a longstanding business:
Police said the gang could be behind the disappearances of up to 60 people in Peru's Huanuco and Pasco regions.
One of those arrested told police the ringleader had been killing people for their fat for more than three decades.
Longstanding enough to attain some historical resonance:
The gang has been referred to as the Pishtacos, after an ancient Peruvian legend of killers who attack people on lonely roads and murder them for their fat.
There's surely a missing new media angle here. Isn't it really... crowdsourcing taken to the ultimate?
(thanks to my truly scary wife)
Reading this, I was reminded of Kate Beaton's webcomic on Burke and Hare:
http://www.harkavagrant.com/index.php?id=222
A business with historical resonance, indeed...
Posted by: Ruben | November 21, 2009 at 18:13
Ruben, what a splendid connection! What fun, diving into that Gothic business.
If you don't know Burk and Hare, check out Wikipedia, or looking up "burking" in the OED.
Posted by: Bryan Alexander | November 23, 2009 at 09:35