Living in Peru : your everyday companion

LivinginPeru.com
Isabel Guerra

This week many Peruvians, as well as the international community, were in shock over allegations that a criminal gang killed people - perhaps as many as 60 – to extract the fat from their bodies to sell it to companies that make cosmetics.

However, many people are expressing doubts on this horror story, especially Peruvian citizens over 40, who have seen the “pishtaco” Andean myth jump to the Peruvian press headlines every few years during all their lives.

In the mythology of Andean cultures, a “pishtaco” (or nakaq) is a devil that kills people to steal their body fat, which was allegedly very highly priced many years ago for cosmetics and medicinal uses.

Serapio Veramendi and some other accomplices were arrested this week after a routine police raid on busses traveling from the provinces to Lima, and was  found  with lemonade bottles filled with fat, that laboratory tests later proved to be human.

According to police reports, Veramendi explained that those were “sample material,” and that the band had collected 17 liters of fat, expecting to sell it to cosmetics firms for 15,000 dollars a liter.

While investigations continue, people like Peruvian Medical Association Dean Julio Castro Gomez remain unconvinced in regards to the story, noting that plastic surgery clinics obtain large amounts of fat in liposuction procedures and discard it because there is no market for it.

Also many Peruvians remember that stories like this one, or others such as those related to images of the Virgin Mary that allegedly cry miraculous tears, as well as other urban legends, tend to appear within the local press at times when the government is facing difficulties.

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