Details of a purported Brazilian cannibal gang that allegedly murdered at least five women before eating their flesh - and in some cases selling it in the form of meat pastries - have shaken the country.

Details of the incident began to trickle out after the newspaper Folha de Sao Paulo released a video on its website at the weekend.

Jorge da Silveira was one of the people accused of making his victims into meat pastries. Credit:AFP

In the video Isabel Cristina da Silva, 51, said she and her husband and his 25-year-old girlfriend had eaten 10 kilograms of human flesh over the course of five days in the city of Garanhuns.

The procedure was part of a purification ritual for a sect to which they belonged, identified as Cartel.