Criminals Set Their Sights on Peru’s Cultural Legacy

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The looting of archaeological heritage and land trafficking in Peru is reaching alarming levels, and authorities lack the resources and will to combat the criminal networks behind this trade.

The Caral archaeological site in Barranca province, in the department of Lima, is a key archaeological site that contains the remains of one of the oldest civilizations in the Americas, dating back more than 5,000 years. In the last month, the main archaeologist responsible for the Caral site, archaeologist Dr. Ruth Shady, has received several death threats.

“They told me to disappear because they are going to kill me,” she told local media.

In early September, Shady reported efforts to intimidate her and her team by land traffickers trying to illegally appropriate land near the site, as well as its archaeological artifacts. Although the archaeologist had received similar threats for years, the latest threats were more severe. The traffickers hired hitmen to threaten the workers and accelerate the land invasions, which led to the resignation of several project collaborators. A lack of government support and the withdrawal of police from the area has further aggravated the situation.

Local Issue, Global Market Growing international demand, mainly from collectors in Europe and North America, is driving the looting of archaeological sites worldwide. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) estimates that the global trade in cultural property can generate between $3-15 billion annually.

Around the world, archaeological trafficking is managed by organized criminal networks that, in addition to operating on the black market, work with legal actors, such as antique dealers and corrupt officials. These actors help launder the looted goods by falsifying documents legitimizing the sale of the artifacts in legal markets.

SEE ALSO: Black Market for Mayan Artifacts Still Thrives in Guatemala

Although the networks involved in this type of trafficking are very sophisticated, they tend to operate as independent actors and are not necessarily linked to other forms of organized crime, such as drug trafficking or arms trafficking.

“Networks dedicated to archaeological looting have a very indirect connection with large criminal organizations,” said Dr. Marc Balcells, professor of Law and Political Science at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya and criminologist expert on the looting of archaeological sites.

In August 2024, the Peruvian government recovered 17 cultural pieces from the Chimú and Nazca civilizations that were being illegally auctioned in Italy. These pieces had been looted and smuggled out of the country, according to authorities.

Stealing the Land Itself Land trafficking adds another layer of complexity to the problem. Not only do traffickers illegally appropriate land within archaeological zones, but they also permit — and encourage — the looting of antiquities. According to Peru’s Ministry of Culture, between 2020 and 2024, there were 28 extrajudicial recoveries of encroached land in protected areas and 364 complaints filed against illegal settlements in archaeological zones.

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, the rate of invasions has increased. Between January and May 2020, around 50 invasions were recorded. Just two years later, more than 1,000 alerts of attacks on archaeological sites nationwide were received during 2022.han 100,000 archaeological sites in the country.

The main goal of land traffickers is to earn a profit by illegally selling and occupying land. Archaeological looting is a bonus.

SEE ALSO: Only a Fraction of Mexico’s Stolen Cultural Antiquities Are Recovered

“Land traffickers will sometimes allow archaeological looting in their territories in exchange for payment,” Balcells explained.

Looters and land traffickers often work together, but what distinguishes one from the other is the use of violence. While archaeological looters rarely resort to intimidation or the use of force, land traffickers often employ violent tactics — including issuing death threats and hiring assassins —to consolidate their control over invaded territory.

This has been Shady’s experience with the Caral site outside Lima.

“They called the Caral lawyer to scare him. They told him that if he kept organizing the defense as I instructed, they were going to kill him, just like they were going to kill me. That they were going to leave us ‘five meters under the ground,’” she told the BBC.

The Battle Against Looting The Peruvian government has increased its efforts to combat archaeological looting and protect its cultural heritage in recent years. Since 2019, authorities have repatriated more than 7,000 artifacts from private collections and auctions abroad.

Despite these advances, the practice of looting, known locally as “huaqueo,” appears to have increased since the COVID-19 pandemic, exacerbated by the lack of resources for security at archaeological sites and the government’s slow response to land invasions. Some of the sites most affected in the last few years have been the Cerro Pintura and Áncash sites north of Lima, as well as a few in Cusco’s urban center.

Authorities have also struggled to curb the expansion of land trafficking at archaeological sites, due to the lack of coordination between cultural, judicial, and security authorities. The absence of a police department dedicated to the prosecution of these crimes and the lack of effective international collaboration to reduce demand and trace looted cultural property makes it even more difficult to control the problem, according to Balcell.

As long as the demand for looted antiquities in the art markets persists, he said, looting will continue to be a profitable activity.

Featured image: The main pyramid at Caral, an archaeological site 930 miles northwest of Lima that is believed to be the oldest city in the Americas. Credit: AP Photo/Silvia Izquierdo

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