Peru Murder Story a Big Fat Lie

Peru cop suspended for tale of gang that killed fatties
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted Dec 2, 2009 3:01 AM CST
Peru Murder Story a Big Fat Lie
A police officer displays two bottles containing human fat while another sets down seized sticks of dynamite during a press conference in Lima last month.   (AP Photo/Karel Navarro)

The Peruvian cop who claimed to have busted a crime ring that killed dozens of people to harvest their fat has been suspended for lying. Felix Murga, the country's top organized crime investigator, said that a gang had killed 60 people to sell their fat at $15,000 a liter. Investigators now believe there was just one victim and his murder was linked to drug trafficking, the BBC reports.

Murga appears to have revived an ancient Andean legend of killers who roam the mountains extracting fat from travelers, say authorities, who blame him for damaging the police force's reputation and scaring tourists away. "This has been a ruse of bad taste," a local politician tells Reuters.
(More Peru stories.)

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