Osama Vinladen is a 22-year-old football player from the Peruvian first division who has been making more headlines because of his controversial name than his professional career.

Osama Vinladen Jimenez Lopez’s name first raised eyebrows in his home country of Peru in 2017, when he was called up to be a part of the South American country’s U-15 (Under 15) team. He made his debut for a professional football club in 2018, when he was signed by second-division club Union Comercio. Last year, the club made it into Peru’s first division, and Osama once again found himself in the news because of his name. Despite his namesake’s terrible reputation, the young football player has always said that he doesn’t have a problem with it, adding that his brother is named Saddam Hussien and that his father wanted to name his third son George Bush. He didn’t get the chance, because his third child turned out to be a girl.

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A trio of Peruvian thieves managed to make international news headlines after pulling off one of the dumbest heists in history – 220 sneakers from various brands, all for the right foot.

The hilarious crime occurred on April 30th, at a sports goods store in Huancayo, central Peru. At around 03:30 am, three men managed to cut the padlocks at the back of the store and steal three large crates filled with sneaker boxes from various brands. What the thieves didn’t realize was that all the shoeboxes they stole only contained sneakers for the right foot, as the owner had prepared the three crates to have the footwear displayed at a local sports goods fair. Authorities suspect that the thieves have hidden their haul, as there is no way that they can sell the sneakers on the black market without their pairs.

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Every year, visitors of Peru’s Vilcanota mountain range are treated to a unique natural phenomenon, a river running blood red through the pristine rocky valleys of Cusco.

Located approximately 100 kilometers from the city of Cusco, near the well-known Palcoyo Rainbow Mountain, the red river is known as Palquella Pucamayu by the locals. It only runs red for about 5 kilometers before mixing with other streams and small rivers in the area, at which point the color becomes diluted, losing its unique hue. The best time to see the red river in person is during the rainy season (December – April), because the color of the water is directly influenced by the level of precipitation. For most of the year, Palquella Pucamayu is a muddy-brown color, but during the rainy season, large quantities of soil rich in iron oxide are carried down from mountains and color the water bright red.

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The small village of Coyllurqui is famous for a controversial “blood festival”, the highlight of which is a symbolic battle between a condor and a bull.

The Peruvian Blood Festival known as the Yawar Fiesta is a big deal in Coyllurqui, a small mountain village a nine-hour bus ride away from the city of Cusco. It’s pretty much the only place in the South American country where tourists can experience the traditional bird vs. bull fight anymore. Formally known as ‘Turupucllay’ (Game of the Bull), it used to be held in cities like Cusco centuries ago, but animal rights activists managed to get it banned in Peru years ago. However, in remote rural settlements like Coyllurqui, enforcing the law is tricky, especially when that goes against the economic interest of the locals.

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Peruvian police in Lima recently received international attention for an offbeat operation in which officers disguised as Marvel and DC superheroes dismantled a crime family.

In a video that has been doing the rounds online for about two weeks now, police officers disguised as Captain America, Thor, Spiderman and Cat Woman can be seen listening to the briefing for ‘Operation Marvel’. After listening to a superior explain the details to them, they walk out to a car and drive to the location of their objective, a criminal operation run by the Mariátegui family, who specialized in drug trafficking. The superheroes casually stroll through the streets all the way to their objective and then smash through the door of a house, catching their targets by surprise.

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Dozens of people taking part in a funeral in Peru were left shocked after the woman being laid to rest allegedly started banging on the casket from the inside.

Late last month, Rosa Isabel Cespedes Callaca, a 36-year-old woman from Lambayeque, Peru, her brother-in-law, and three of her nephews were involved in a serious car accident that claimed the lives of both adults and left the boys with serious injuries. On April 26, Rosa’s relatives gathered in Lambayeque to lay her body to rest. The solemn procession was going according to plan, according to eyewitnesses, but at one point people started hearing faint banging from inside the woman’s coffin. When the lid was opened, the funeral attendees were shocked to see Rosa staring back at them…

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A Peruvian family whose pet dog started chasing and eating neighbors’ chickens and ducks were shocked to learn that their 3-month-old Husky was actually an Andean fox.

Maribel Sotelo, a woman from the city of Comas, in Peru, had no choice but to call the Forest and Wildlife Service and ask for assistance with her pet dog, Run Run, after neighbors started complaining that he was the reason that their poultry and guinea pigs – which are edible in Peru, by the way – were going missing. Sotelo had also noticed the three-month-old “Husky dog” chasing other animals around, but now her neighbors were asking to pay for the damages, so she notified the authorities.

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The mayor of a small town in Peru managed to make international headlines after police caught him lying in a wooden casket in an attempt to fool them into thinking he was dead, after breaking curfew to go drinking long into the night.

Jaime Rolando Urbina Torres, the mayor of Tantará, a rural district in Castrovirreyna, had long been criticized by his constituents for not taking the threat of the ongoing SARS-Cov2 pandemic seriously and not taking the necessary measures to protect them, but last week the elected official really went above and beyond to show his contempt for the lockdown enforced by the Peruvian government. Last Monday Torres and several of his friends broke curfew, going out to drink late into the night. Around midnight, residents alerted by the ruckus the inebriated mayor and his friends were making called the police and the troublemakers came up with an ingenious way of avoiding arrest…

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A Peruvian politician recently took to social media to ask people for his car keys back, after giving them away by mistake while handing out keychains on the campaign trail.

In a video posted on his Facebook page, Jovino Huerta, a congressional candidate for the Peruvian district of Huánuco, repeatedly asked his supporters to help him retrieve the keys to his pickup truck, adding that it was a vital part of his effort to win a Congress seat as without it he can’t run a proper campaign. Huerta isn’t the first person to lose their car keys or plead with whoever found them to retrieve them, but it’s how he lost the keys that makes this story interesting…

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In an age when tech companies are encouraging consumers to constantly buy newer, more-expensive gadgets, one Peruvian company has just a launched a sustainable wooden laptop designed to last at least 10 to 15 years.

In an attempt to bring new and affordable technology to the most remote areas of Peru, the Carrascos —a family made up of computer specialists and marketing experts – created the Wawalaptop, an SBC (Single Board Computer) with a wooden casing that can easily be taken apart for repairs and upgrading. The 0.1-inch (25.65-centimeter) laptop is lightweigh, ultra-portable and very affordable. A Wawalaptop costs 799 Peruvian Sol ($235), and an upgrade, which basically means a better circuit board, can be bought with about $35 on the free market.

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Photos of a Venezuelan emigrant allegedly chained to his seat at a restaurant in Peru so that he wouldn’t walk out without paying have sparked controversy online.

The shocking photos were originally posted on Twitter by a Venezuelan journalist named Luis Martinez, who writes for La Patilla. However, while the article posted on the news website is still accessible, the photos have been removed from the journalist’s Twitter feed. Allegedly, Martinez got the photos from a countryman who emigrated to Peru following the longstanding political and social turmoil in Venezuela. In one of his deleted tweets, the journalist claims that the man took the photos himself after being chained to his seat, but asked that his face be blurred out for fear of repercussions in Peru.

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Copa Ataúdes or Coffin Cup, a yearly futsal tournament hosted by the Peruvian city of Juliaca, has been dubbed the world’s most depressing sports competition for offering coffins as prizes to the three best teams.

The Juliaca Coffin Cup is not your usual futsal tournament. It’s a competition between teams representing the twelve largest funeral houses in the  Puno Region of southeastern Peru, so it kind of makes sense that the main prizes be something representative of the funeral business. Still, fighting your heart out on the pitch for an expensive casket you have to share with five other teammates doesn’t exactly sound worthwhile. That didn’t stop the winning team from parading their $1,300 luxury coffin on their shoulders and singing “Olé, olé, campeon!” at the end of the final match, though.

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CCTV footage showing a 12-year-old boy from the town of Moche, in Peru, doing his homework on the sidewalk, under a streetlight, because his family can’t afford electricity in their home, has been viewed millions of times on social media after being shared by local police.

Staff at the Moche police department first noticed Víctor Martín Angulo Córdoba late last month, while checking security cameras. They noticed a young boy sitting on the sidewalk by himself at night, which they thought was suspicious. It was only when they zoomed in that they realized he was actually reading and writing something in his notebook, taking advantage of the streetlight overhead. Touched by the boy’s dedication to his studies, the police department shared the CCTV video on their official Facebook account and it quickly went viral.

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A Peruvian woman claims that her possessed doll frightened her boyfriend into leaving her after it attacked him out of jealousy.

Berliz, a young woman from Callao, Peru, told reporters that Deisy, a doll she received from her mother as a Christmas gift when she was younger, has been exhibiting Poltergeist-like behavior, including moving its head and limbs, and even attacking people she doesn’t like. The doll’s latest victim was Berliz’s boyfriend, who broke off their relationship after Deisy “grabbed and hit him” while he was sleeping.

According to Berliz, the possessed doll moves by itself, knocks things down around the house and appears to be the source of several phenomena that cannot be explained. The woman says that Deisy appears to be very jealous and acts out whenever someone gets close to its owner. For example, she recalled a bizarre occurrence from when she was 18-years-old. Her father hugged her and then the lights suddenly went out. When they went back on, her face was full of cuts.

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A Peruvian man recently divorced his wife after discovering her infidelity while looking around on Google Street View.

The unnamed man who recently posted photographic proof of his discovery on Facebool, was allegedly looking for the fastest way to reach the Bridge of Sighs, in Barranco, Lima, when he came upon a familiar figure – a curly-haired woman sitting on a bench and stroking the hair of a man who had his head in her lap. Although both people’s faces were blurred to protect their privacy, the man recognized his wife’s hair and clothes. The only problem was that the man she was with wasn’t him.

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