Claim police ‘cooked up’ human fat thieves

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.