Don’t get this headline confused; this is not a case of a Peruvian gang killing people because they hated obesity but rather because they wanted to take the fat people, harvest them, and then sell their fat on the black market. So…at least they’re thinking outside the box.

Don’t get this headline confused; this is not a case of a Peruvian gang killing people because they hated obesity but rather because they wanted to take the fat people, harvest them, and then sell their fat on the black market. So…at least they’re thinking outside the box.

Police say a gang in the Peruvian jungle has been killing people and draining fat from the corpses to sell on the black market for use in cosmetics, although medical experts say they doubt a major market for fat exists.

Three suspects confessed to killing five people, but the gang may have been involved in dozens more, said Col. Jorge Mejia, chief of Peru’s anti-kidnapping police. He said one suspect claimed the gang wasn’t the only one doing such killings.

Mejia said two of the suspects were arrested carrying bottles of liquid human fat and told police it was worth $60,000 a gallon. The fat was sold to intermediaries in Peru’s capital, Lima, and police suspect it was then sold to cosmetic companies in Europe, Mejia said Thursday, but he could not confirm any sales.

Say what you will, but I’ve always admired the entrepreneurial nature of certain sects of the criminal element. In the Malcolm Gladwell book The Tipping Point, he talks about how one drug organization had stacks of paperwork backing up their financial spending and distribution that would rival a Fortune 500 company. The Mafia made solid-to-spectacular livings selling business owners a rudimentary form of insurance (albeit with the threat of violence from the Mafia also hanging over their head). Whether you like their methods or not (and how could you not, who doesn’t love a little bit of crack or a mysterious fire at the local delicatessen?), at least they’re trying.

It would have been nicer to not kill the people though. If the gang had free liposuction signs and then just cut the fat out of people armed only with a scalpel, a hose, and a poorly written guide from eHow, it probably would have been no worse than the other plastic surgeons in Peru.

[MSNBC]