Alien Fever Dreams Fuel Peruvian Grave Robbings

Photo by REUTERS/Sebastian Castaneda Purchase Licensing Rights
Photo by REUTERS/Sebastian Castaneda Purchase Licensing Rights
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Alien Fever Dreams Fuel Peruvian Grave Robbings

Photo by REUTERS/Sebastian Castaneda Purchase Licensing Rights
Photo by REUTERS/Sebastian Castaneda Purchase Licensing Rights

Leandro Rivera says he chanced upon the cave in Peru's remote Nazca region that contained hundreds of pre-Hispanic artifacts – including human bodies with elongated heads and what appeared to be only three fingers on each hand.
The plateau is famous for the Nazca lines, incisions on the desert floor forming birds and other animals visible from the air. The ancient geoglyphs have long intrigued anthropologists and exert a powerful fascination over some believers in extraterrestrials.
Nazca is also known for salt flats that dehydrate and preserve human and animal remains, making it the site of important archeological finds that have deepened modern understanding of ancient cultures – and attracted grave robbers.
Rivera was convicted in 2022 of assault on public monuments for unearthing the artifacts. He received a four-year suspended sentence and was fined about 20,000 Peruvian soles ($5,190), short of the maximum penalty of an eight-year prison term.
His haul was thrust into the spotlight last year when two of the mummies ended up in Mexico as the centerpiece of congressional hearings on UFOs and extraterrestrial life. Mexican journalist Jaime Maussan presented the bodies as a sign of life beyond Earth – a claim dismissed by scientists.
In an interview with Reuters, Rivera said he removed as many as 200 sets of remains from the cave, and some bodies had been smuggled out of Peru to France, Spain and Russia.
The presentation of bodies in Mexico – as well as Rivera's claims to have dozens more – have prompted some experts to ask whether Peru is losing the battle to stop the plunder of its archaeological sites to feed a lucrative black market for mummies and other pre-Hispanic artifacts.
"Peru has done a lot of work to try and control this trade," said Christopher Heaney, a Latin American history professor at Penn State University and author of a book on Peruvian mummies. "But this implies that these claims for government success need to be re-examined a bit if objects like (the bodies in Mexico) can leave the country."
Peru's Culture Ministry did not respond to questions about the effectiveness of its efforts to control trafficking.
Reuters was granted rare access to the ministry's anti-smuggling unit at Lima's international airport and spoke to four government officials who said stricter penalties, more resources and better coordination were needed to fight the looting.
The news agency was unable to verify independently key details of Rivera's account. The public prosecutor's office of the culture ministry said in a statement to Reuters that its investigation into Rivera yielded just two altered bodies and two partial sets of bones.
Evelyn Centurion, head of cultural heritage recovery for the ministry, said the government is working on a task force with police, the attorney general, the foreign ministry and other departments to toughen penalties for looting cultural artifacts.
"The looting has not stopped," Centurion said in an interview. "We need greater collaboration from local governments and local authorities to prevent these illicit acts."



Egypt Says Retrieves 25 Smuggled Artifacts From US

A handout picture released by the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs shows Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty looking at a collection of artifacts, illegally smuggled out of Egypt, after they were returned at the ministry headquarters in Cairo on May 12, 2025. (Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs / AFP / Handout)
A handout picture released by the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs shows Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty looking at a collection of artifacts, illegally smuggled out of Egypt, after they were returned at the ministry headquarters in Cairo on May 12, 2025. (Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs / AFP / Handout)
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Egypt Says Retrieves 25 Smuggled Artifacts From US

A handout picture released by the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs shows Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty looking at a collection of artifacts, illegally smuggled out of Egypt, after they were returned at the ministry headquarters in Cairo on May 12, 2025. (Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs / AFP / Handout)
A handout picture released by the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs shows Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty looking at a collection of artifacts, illegally smuggled out of Egypt, after they were returned at the ministry headquarters in Cairo on May 12, 2025. (Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs / AFP / Handout)

Sarcophagus lids, a Greco-Roman portrait and fragments of what is believed to be a temple of Queen Hatshepsut were among 25 rare artifacts returned to Egypt from the United States, the Egyptian antiquities ministry said Monday.

The pieces -- spanning centuries of Egyptian civilization -- were handed over following a three-year recovery effort by Egypt's consulate in New York, the New York District Attorney's Office and US security agencies, the ministry said in a statement.

The collection includes wooden and gilded sarcophagus lids dating back more than 5,500 years, parts of a temple believed to belong to Queen Hatshepsut and a Greco-Roman mummy portrait from Fayyoum -- a southern city renowned for its distinctive Greco-Roman art.

The trove also features intricately crafted jewellery from around 2,400 years ago, a granite foot fragment dating back to the Ramessid dynasty, during the peak of Egypt's power, as well as small ivory and stone figurines.

A rare gold coin dating back over two millennia to the reign of Ptolemy I -- one of Alexander the Great's generals and founder of ancient Egypt's last royal dynasty -- is also part of the collection.

The antiquities were seized in separate investigations beginning in 2022 and were held at Egypt's consulate in New York until their return to Cairo on Sunday, according to the ministry's statement.

Officials did not reveal exactly how the artifacts left Egypt or how they surfaced in the US.

Egyptian authorities say they have succeeded in bringing home nearly 30,000 artifacts over the past decade.