Lima, Nov 20: A gang of three were arrested in Peru for killing people and draining the body fat from the corpses to sell it on the black market.

Police say that the suspects have confessed to killing five people. But the gang may have been involved in dozens more, Colonel Jorge Mejia, chief of Peru's anti-kidnapping police is quoted as saying in news reports.

Col Mejia added that two of the suspects were arrested carrying bottles of liquid human fat. They even told the police that the fat was worth 15,000 US dollars a litre.

The suspects who were operating in a Peruvian jungle are believed to have been selling the fat for use in cosmetics.

The police suspect that the fat may have been first sold to intermediaries in Lima, and then sold to cosmetic companies in Europe. However, the police can not confirm this.

At a press conference, police showed the media two bottles of fat recovered from the suspects.

On Nov 3, police arrested Serapio Marcos Veramendi and Enedina Estela in a Lima bus station with a litre of human fat in a soda bottle.

It was these arrests that led the police to the gang leader Hilario Cudena who allegedly has been killing people and harvesting their bodies for fat for over a decade now.

OneIndia News