Forget "Twilight" and "New Moon;" I've got fat suckers here and they have a funny name.
When I googled, “Pishtaco,” it asked me if I meant Pistachio. Nope. Nuts aren’t involved. I can’t say it without thinking of fish tacos, which, incidentally, I find abhorrent.
Pishtacos are part of ancient Peruvian mythology: White men who sucked the fat from murdered natives who wandered off the beaten path, so to speak. It’s like a vampire, only with fat instead of blood. I see the creators of "Twilight" and "New Moon" taking this to a whole new level. Blood suckers are wimps. Fat suckers on the other hand . .
Maybe they could remake a series of movies from the early 1980s and take them in a different direction: “Porky’s,” “Porky’s II: The Next Day, ‘Porky’s Revenge.” I’ll have to call my friend Dan Monahan, who played Pee Wee in the Porky’s series, and see if he’s available.
You’d think if story is true, however, that doctors who specialize in liposuction could be making more of a fortune than they already make.
And yet, there it is, all over Associated Press, Yahoo, and the Daily Telegraph: A gang in a remote Peruvian jungle has been killing people for their fat, draining it from corpses and selling it on the black market for cosmetics.
Four people have been arrested. Three have allegedly confessed to killing five people for their fat, according to Col. Jorge Mejia, chief of Peru’s anti-kidnapping police. So what’s the going price for human fat? According to those arrested, around $60,000 a gallon.
The suspects told police the fat was sold to intermediaries in Lima and was bound for cosmetic processing in Europe.
Yale University dermatology professor Dr. Lisa Donofrio speculated to the Associated Press that a small market may exist for "human fat extracts" to keep skin supple, though scientifically such treatments are "pure baloney."
And you just don’t get this kind of press conference in the U.S. Police showed reporters two bottles of fat recovered from the suspects and a photo of the rotting head of one of the victims.
Mejia said the suspect explained that the gang would cut off its victims' heads, arms and legs, remove the organs, and then suspend the torsos from hooks above candles that warmed the flesh as the fat dripped into tubs below.
The gang’s fugitive leader, identified as Hilario Cudena, 56, has been doing this for more than 30 years, the suspects told police. Some 60 people are listed as missing in the province where the gang allegedly operated. And that’s just this year.
The suspects have been charged with homicide, criminal conspiracy, illegal firearms possession and drug trafficking, according to a statement from Lima Superior Court.
Police named the gang "Pishtacos" even though Pishtacos are supposed to be white. If this catches on I can see kids playing in their backyards or planning for next Halloween:
"OK, you be the vampire, you be the werewolf and I’ll be the pishtaco..”
Vampires and werewolves and pictacos, oh my.
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