A Peruvian cave has become a hotspot for grave robbers after three-fingered 'alien mummies' were discovered there.
Last year, mysterious figures with strange, elongated heads and three fingers on each hand were found in a cavern in the Nazca region of Peru.
While scientists are skeptical about whether or not the so-called alien mummies are real, Mexican journalist and UFO enthusiast Jaime Maussan has claimed they are a sign of life beyond Earth.
Leandro Rivera, who found the cave, has since been imprisoned for unearthing the treasures, charged with the crime of assault on public monuments.
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But, before he was caught, Rivera is said to have removed up to 200 sets of remains from the cave and smuggled them to France, Spain and Russia.
This has sparked concern amongst experts over the stolen artefacts being sold on the black market.
Experts explain that mummies and other pre-Hispanic artefacts are incredibly valuable on the black market.
"Peru has done a lot of work to try and control this trade," Christopher Heaney, a Latin American history professor at Penn State University, told the New York Post.
"But this implies that these claims for government success need to be re-examined a bit if objects like this can leave the country."
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the smuggling of cultural artefacts increased significantly as traffickers took advantage the privacy the shift to online sales afforded them.
According to Enrique Lopez-Hurtado, former coordinator of the culture sector of UNESCO Peru: "Social networks have become spaces for the sale of works of art and antiques of illegal origin, and unfortunately this traffic has increased during the COVID-19 pandemic."
With Peru sharing borders with five other countries, it is incredibly difficult to prevent looted items from being trafficked elsewhere.
When one of the alien mummies looted from the cave was presented at a press conference in Mexico last year, Peruvian officials stormed the event to seize the item.
The conference was held by Jaime Maussan, who named the alien Montserrat.
Taking over the mic, officials from the Peruvian Ministry of Culture said: "Sorry for the interruption, we are taking an unexpected preventive action with the Ministry of Culture and the Specialised Cultural Heritage Police regarding the exhibition of the tridactyl mummies that you have reported on social networks."
However, their plan to seize the specimen failed spectacularly due to Montserrat not even being present at the event.
Instead, Maussan was carrying out a video presentation on the tridactyl mummy.
Following the interruption, the officials were cheekily invited to stay and watch.