Peru's shocking gang killing and refining oil to make cosmetics (picture)

Police Display Seized Bottles of "Human Oil" and Other Evidence

Peruvian Gang Kills to Render Human Fat

A liter of human oil sells for $15,000, reportedly destined for high-end cosmetics in Europe.

In the French film "Perfume," the Parisian foundling Grenouille, who lacks any human scent himself, possesses an extraordinary sense of smell. He creates what is arguably the world's most unique and remarkable perfume, with the secret being the use of virgin body scents in its ingredients. Whenever he becomes captivated by a young woman's scent, he spares no expense to murder her, using the fresh corpse's aroma as material for his perfume. This fictional movie has an eerie real-life counterpart in Peru, where a horrifying case of killing for human fat to produce cosmetics has emerged. Reports indicate that on the 19th, Peruvian police cracked down on a shocking crime syndicate suspected of indiscriminately slaughtering innocents, extracting their fats, and selling this "human oil" overseas to be processed into cosmetics—a chilling real-life version of the classic French horror film "Perfume."

A Liter of Human Oil Sells for $15,000

Colonel Jorge Meja, head of the Peruvian police unit responsible for combating kidnapping crimes, announced on the 19th that four suspects from the gang had been detained. Seven members remain at large, including the 56-year-old gang leader Hilario Gutierrez and two Italians. Three of the suspects admitted to killing at least five victims, extracting human fat and selling it to a "middleman" in the capital Lima. Police suspect they may have killed over 60 people. Prosecutor Jorge Sans Giroux told AFP that the buyers of human fat might use it for commercial purposes in "European (cosmetic) laboratories."

According to the indictment submitted by the prosecution to the Lima Superior Court, these three suspects face charges of murder, conspiracy, illegal possession of weapons, and drug smuggling. According to the suspects' statements, each liter of human fat could sell for $15,000.

The Peruvian police held a press conference in Lima to update the public on the case. The police showed reporters bottles used by the suspects to store the liquid human fat, as well as photos of the decomposed head of a 27-year-old victim.

The police have named this criminal gang "Pistacos." Long before Columbus arrived in the Americas, the term "Pistaco" was already legendary in the Andes region of South America. It refers to a cold-blooded sorcerer who kills people with machetes at night on deserted roads, extracting their fat to process into lubricants or ointments, or even selling human flesh as food.

Bones of the Victims Found by the Police

Following Clues

According to media reports, several cases of missing persons have occurred in Peru over the past few months. Four months ago, police received intelligence indicating that someone in the Peruvian jungle was killing people to extract their fat and selling it in Lima. In August, the police infiltrated the gang and managed to obtain some amber-colored liquid. Laboratory tests confirmed that the liquid was human fat.

Felix Burga, head of the Peruvian police's criminal investigation department, said that about two months ago, a network trafficking in human fat began to surface. On November 3rd, police arrested suspects Serapio Marcos Belamente and Eneida Estrada at a bus station in Lima, discovering one liter of human fat in a glass bottle they were carrying. Based on their testimonies, the police followed the trail, launching a manhunt. They discovered dismembered bodies and oil-filled bottles in a house in the ancient Spanish city of Huánuco in Latin America and found scattered heads and limbs of victims in the woods northeast of the city. Another suspect, Castillejos, was also detained.

As described in the prosecution's indictment, this criminal gang operated in remote areas of the Andes, luring farmers and indigenous residents with promises of work before killing them. The police demonstrated how the group stored the extracted fat in used mineral water bottles and jugs, stating that the detainees had "fully confessed, explaining how they murdered the victims, how they extracted the fat in rudimentary laboratories, and sold this fat."

Castillejos confessed that they first decapitated and dismembered the victims, removed their internal organs, then hung the torsos and roasted them with candles, collecting the rendered oil in buckets. He told the police that the gang leader Gutierrez had been killing and extracting fat for over 30 years and that their gang was not the only one engaged in such activities.