A Brazilian mayor sparked massive controversy earlier this month after legally marrying a 16-year-old girl and then appointing her mother Secretary of Culture and Tourism.

65-year-old Hissam Hussein Dehaini, the mayor of Araucária City, in southern Brazil, recently married a girl 49 years his junior the day after she turned 16, which is the legal age that someone can get legally married. This alone sparked controversy in the South American country, but the controversial union was also shadowed by serious accusations of nepotism and corruption. The Prosecutor’s Office in the Brazilian state of Paraná is investigating the appointment of the young bride’s mother to the position of Secretary of Culture and Tourism in Araucária just a day after the mayor’s wedding.

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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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A Colombian woman who lost her husband at the hands of a local crime boss, spent years planning her revenge, seducing him and gathering evidence to have him arrested for multiple crimes.

In what sounds like the script of a Hollywood blockbuster, a Colombian woman managed to do what the police and the military could not – avenge the death of her husband and bring a dangerous criminal to justice. The unnamed woman was hailed as a hero by police and journalists in Cordoba, Colombia, after spending years getting close to a cunning criminal and gathering enough evidence to have them prosecuted. But she was no crime fighter, just a grieving widow getting revenge on the man who had had her husband assassinated years before…

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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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A Colombian man had the misfortune of being thrown in jail three times in the last 13 years because he has the same name as a wanted drug cartel leader.

46-year-old René Martínez Gutiérrez is a peaceful family man with no criminal record to his name. The problem is he shares the same name with a Peruvian drug dealer with several national and international arrest warrants, and for this reason he has been arrested three times in the last 13 years. The last time occurred earlier this month when the man returned to his native country of Colombia to see his sick father. He was arrested as soon as his plane touched ground in Bogota and he has been in jail ever since…

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Bolivia’s state airline has become the target of ridicule after hiring an “interspecies communicator” to track down a passenger’s missing pet cat.

The disappearance of Tito the cat has been a matter of state business in Bolivia for about a month, ever since the feline was lost by staff of Bolivia’s state-owned airline. Tito’s owner, a woman working in Ireland, was taking the feline from Tarija to Santa Cruz to have it certified as a therapy animal, but was told that the cat had to go into the cargo hold. When the plane landed, she was shocked to see Tito’s cage empty. Airline staff admitted to losing Tito prior to takeoff and the cat’s disappearance became the number one news story in Bolivia. Recently, the Ministry of Justice even hired a self-proclaimed interspecies communicator in hopes of finding the cat.

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Police in Santa Marta, Colombia, recently attracted criticism for publishing a wanted poster of alleged cartel members with no actual photos or names.

On January 2nd, the Santa Marta police department published a poster of 12 of the most wanted criminals in the Colombian town, asking the general public for help in apprehending the alleged criminals, who were all members of the “Los Pachenca” drug cartel. All 12 individuals were also suspects in a series of criminal acts committed in Santa Marta in recent months, so it made sense to ask locals for assistance in catching them as soon as possible. The only problem was that the published poster only mentioned the suspects’ nicknames instead of their actual names and the same generic graphic where their photos should have been…

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Argentina is known for a lot of things, from tango to its love of football, but you probably didn’t know that it’s also home to the world’s drunkest drivers.

Back in March of this year, Argentinian media reported that a young man in the town of Plottier, Neuquén province, had broken the world breathalyzer record, after scoring an unprecedented 5,79 grams of alcohol per liter of breath when tested by police, after crashing his car in a ditch. Despite suffering minor injuries to his face and arms because of the crash, he refused medical assistance and did not cooperate with the police. However, he would not get to brag about his unusual record for too long, because just last week, a fellow Argentinian broke it again.

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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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After nearly three years of litigation with entertainment giant DC Comics, a small neighborhood bakery in Chile has retained the right to use the brand “Superpan”.

41-year-old Gonzalo Montenegro has been selling bread in his native Quinta Normal, a commune in the Santiago province, for over three decades. As a youth, he would promote his products by wearing a green “Peter Pan” t-shirt, and one with the iconic symbol of the “Man of Steel”. It was the second one that really stuck with people, and before long, they started calling him “Superpan”, a play on words combining “Superman” and “pan”, the Spanish word for ‘bread’. Over the last 28 years, Montenegro used ‘Superpan’ as a brand to sell his bakery products, but some three years ago, he learned that he was being sued by DC Comics, the owners of Superman.

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Roberto Gabriel Trigo, are tired football player from Paraguay, is probably the only man alive who can say that he shot down a small plane with a football.

The legend of the football kick that brought down a plane has been doing the rounds through the locker rooms of Paraguayan football clubs for six decades. Some say it happened during an official game, others that it was during a practice, but they all credit the same man – Roberto Gabriel Trigo. He was 17 years old at the time and playing as a right back for the now-defunct General Genes football club of Asuncion. Annoyed by a small plane flying low over the local football field, Trigo allegedly kicked the ball outwards, hitting the aircraft’s engine and causing it to crash in an open field, just 200 meters away.

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Over the past couple of days, news headlines in the South American country of Paraguay have been dominated by “Gordito lindo” (Cute fatty), an inmate who managed to walk out of prison by dressing as a woman.

On Sunday, César Ortiz, a supposed leader of the Rotela crime gang, escaped Tacumbú National Penitentiary by simply walking out through the front gate. Along with his freedom, he also earned the nickname “Gordito Lindo” or “Cute fatty”, because he disguised himself as a woman in order to fool the guards. Photos and video footage released by Paraguayan authorities show the convicted criminal wearing a long hair wig, fake eyelashes, lipstick, fake fingernails and women’s clothing. His disguise made such an impression on the public that the “Gordito Lindo” nickname stuck.

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Gabriel Cortez, a star midfielder for Ecuador’s Barcelona SC football club and the top scorer of the country’s Serie A this season, was recently arrested for allegedly being a member of a dangerous gang involved in drug trafficking and murder.

On Friday, April 22, Ecuadorian police raided 29 properties and arrested 18 suspects as part of a complex crime-busting operation code-named Gran Impacto 10. Of the suspects, three were reportedly active police officers, and one was one of Ecuador’s top football players, 26-year-old Gabriel Cortez, the country’s top goal-scorer so far this season with seven goals in nine games. Police descended on his home via helicopter and arrested him on suspicion of being a member of Los Tiguerones, a gang that specializes in a variety of criminal activities, including drug trafficking and murder.

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The South American country of Uruguay is home to a unique eucalyptus plantation with a very distinct shape that can only by admired from high above.

Up until a few years ago, few people even knew that the Florida Goblet existed. It wasn’t until Google Earth became a thing that people discovered its unusual shape. To some, it looks like a goblet with a crown on top of it, while others see a chandelier, but the thing that everyone can agree on it its massive size. The plantation measures about 500 meters long by 235 wide and the lines that make up the top and bottom of the design are around 13-meters-wide. It’s so large that from the ground, you could never tell it has this peculiar shape.

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Brought into Colombia as exotic pets by the most notorious drug kingpin in human history, have been breeding at an alarming pace over the last few decades and have become a serious threat to the Colombian flora and fauna.

In the 1980s, Pablo Escobar smuggled four hippos from an American zoo into Colombia, as exotic pets. They were kept at his luxurious Hacienda Napoles, in Puerto Triunfo, Antioquia, but after the collapse of his crime empire, they were set loose into the jungle. With no natural predators, plenty of water sources and suitable climate, the hippopotamuses thrived and multiplied. The initial four water giants have now ballooned to an estimated population of over 100, which scientists say could reach over 1,400 specimens by 2039.

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