Allegedly murderered boys and young men, chopping up their bodies and selling the flesh to unsuspecting consumers

Police in southwest China have detained a man suspected of murdering more than a dozen boys and young men, chopping up their bodies and selling the flesh to unsuspecting consumers, reports said.

Zhang Yongming, 56, was detained two weeks ago in Nanmen village in Yunnan province and is being investigated over the murder of a 19-year-old man in late April, the Guangxi News website reported.

Police searching Zhang’s home found the young man’s cellphone, bank card and other evidence, according to the website, which said more than a dozen other teenagers had gone missing from the village over the years.

It said Zhang had previously served almost 20 years in jail for murder.

Zhang was known in the village as the “cannibal monster,” the site reported, quoting residents as saying they had seen green plastic bags hanging from his home, with what appeared to be white bones protruding from the top.

Hong Kong newspaper The Standard said that police entering Zhang’s home discovered human eyeballs preserved inside wine bottles and pieces of what appeared to be human flesh hanging in the house to dry.

Police feared that Zhang had fed human flesh to his three dogs, while selling other parts on the market, calling it “ostrich meat”, according to The Standard.

Beijing has dispatched a team of experts to Yunnan to supervise the investigation into the missing teenagers and two local police chiefs have been dismissed from their positions, the official Xinhua news agency said.

Families of the missing youth suspected that they had been kidnapped and forced to work in illegal brick kilns.