Complete and Utter Zebu

Last month the world was shocked to hear of the arrest in Peru of four men who had murdered up to 60 people. General Felix Murga, who let the investigation into organised crime in Peru, said that the victims’ body fat had been sold off to European cosmetic companies to be used in miracle anti-ageing creams. At the press conference, two coke bottles were displayed, apparently full of human fat.

The story tapped into the Peruvian myth of Pishtacos, vampire-like creatures who live in caves in the Andes and suck fat rather than blood from their prey. The police claimed that people were lured to a remote hut in the jungle with the offer of a job, where they were beaten to death. They went into pretty gruesome detail, explaining that the victims’ limbs and head were cut off, their internal organs removed and their bodies then melted down with candles.

Now, after an investigation, it turns out that the whole thing was complete and utter Zebu, a fabrication made up by Murga and other officers, apparently to conceal the unlawful killing – by the police – of as many as 50 criminal suspects. Murga has been suspended and it is thought that only one of the four who “confessed” is guilty of murder. Medical experts point out that, if the press had only thought to check before flashing the story around the world, they would have discovered that there is no market for human fat. What would have been valuable on the black market were the victims’ organs, but the police claimed those had been discarded.