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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The Resistencia Sport Club, a small football club in Paraguay’s second division, is the first in the world to make a tree growing in the stands of its stadium an official supporter, even offering it a membership card and complimentary jersey.

Resistencia’s evergreen supporter is as old as the club, so both the team and its human supporters consider it part of their history. It was around back when the stadium was a mere football field in the middle of a wasteland, so 20-years ago, when the club decided to built concrete stands for its fans, it never even considered the possibility of cutting down their oldest supporters. Instead, they asked the architects and engineers in charge of the project to come up with a solution that would allow it to thrive. So they built the stands around it, allowing human fans to watch home games in its shade. A couple of years ago, when Resistencia celebrated its 100th anniversary, management decided to honor the tree by making it an official member of the club, complete with its own member card and jersey.

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Whenever 19-year-old Optimosprayn Ismael Meza Barbosa tells people his name, they think he is making fun of them. That’s because his name is the phonetic version of how some people pronounce “Optimus Prime” in Spanish. It was given to him by his father, an avid fan of the Transformers animated series.

The Paraguayan teen recently got his five minutes of online fame after a photo of his ID card went viral on social media. A lot of people thought it was digitally altered to attract attention, but Optimosprayn recently sat down with Paraguayan newspaper Cronica to confirm that he was indeed the Latino namesake of Optimus Prime, leader of the Autobots.

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A male student at the Universidad Mayor de San Miguel, in Cochabamba, Bolivia, was recently apprehended while trying to take the college entrance exam on behalf of a female applicant, disguised as a woman.

19-year-old Bryan G. was already a Systems Engineering student at the Universidad Mayor de San Miguel, but on February 6th, he tried to once again take the entrance exam at his college, this time on behalf of a female applicant. To fool university staff, he put on a wig, applied makeup on his face and dressed in women’s clothing. Unfortunately, he was seated at the front of the exam hall where all the professors and assistants could see him, and because he looked more nervous than the other applicants, he quickly attracted their attention. Just as Bryan was about to receive his exam sheet, an assistant came over, asked him who he was, and when he answered “Jocelin C.”, the man told him “You are not that person”.

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Many children dream of becoming entrepreneurs when they grow up, but very few start as early as, Jose Adolfo Quisocala Condori, a Peruvian boy who started a children’s savings bank when he was only 7 years old. Today, his bank serves over 2,000 clients and offers various financial services.

Jose got the idea for a children’s savings bank six years ago, after noticing that many of his peers were spending their money on sweets and toys, instead of saving it for more meaningful purchases. Despite his young age, he understood that saving money and accessing the financial system were two ways that adults – like his parents – solved many of their financial and social problems, so he decided to make them available to kids as well. He then started thinking of ways that children could generate money without the help of their parents, and recycling seemed like the obvious answer. Jose was sure that he was on to something, but when he pitched his idea for a children’s bank to his teachers, he was told that a 7-year-old couldn’t handle such a project. But he proved them all wrong.

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A 37-year-old woman from Colombia recently shocked her entire country after managing to fake her pregnancy for nine months and then coming up with film-worthy story to explain the absence of a baby on her due date. And she did it all to keep her partner from leaving her.

Antonela Santiago Padilla and her partner Victor had known each other since they were 14 year old teenagers growing up in northern Barranquilla. Life split them apart for a long time, but many years later, Victor called to commemorate the memory of her brother, who had passed away. She started writing to him in September of last year, and soon their relationship became stronger and closer. However, Antonela knew that he was involved in a romantic relationship with another woman and didn’t want to break them up. Victor kept telling her that he and his partner weren’t getting along and that they were going to break up, so they started their own romantic relationship in December 2017. But Antonela wasn’t convinced that Victor had forgotten about his former girlfriend and it was this insecurity that made her create this elaborate farce that left everyone flabbergasted.

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A Peruvian man recently got his five minutes of online fame after his curious signature went viral on social media. Instead of the typical scribble or just a simple ‘X’, this guy always signs his name with the childish drawing of a kitten.

The man’s signature went viral after a photo of his ID next to an official police document signed by him were posted online by police in the coastal town of Huarmey. He along with five other had been arrested on July 18 on charges of gun possession, and after being taken to the local police station and signed into jail, one signature drew the attention of officers on duty. Instead of a name or a simple scribble, 31-year-old Juan Carlos Varillas Bazán had drawn a childish doodle of a kitten. Only after checking his ID and seeing that it featured the same drawing as a signature did they realize that they were not being trolled and that that was really the guy’s signature. They thought it was hilarious so they posted the documents on the station’s Facebook page for everyone to see.

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A motel in Bucaramanga, Colombia, has come under fire for helping an unfaithful husband hide from his wife who was waiting outside for him, and later using the story to promote itself on social media.

Motel Palmeiras has been facing a lot of criticism online for encouraging adultery by going out of its way to help a client who had spent the night there with a mistress hide from his wife, who was waiting outside to confront him. And as if this wasn’t bad enough, the motel later put together a promotional video detailing how they worked with the unfaithful man to figure out the best way to get him out of trouble.

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A 20-year-old man in Paraguay recently gave his family and friends the shock of their lives when he returned home after three days to find them all grieving over what was supposed to be his dead body.

Juan Ramón Alfonso Penayo, from the village of Santa Teresa, close to Paraguay’s border with Brazil, had last been seen leaving his house last Thursday. He had told no one where he was going, and after failing to get in touch with him, Juan’s family reported his disappearance. As fate would have it, soon after contacting the authorities, the man’s family received news that a charred body had been found in the vicinity of Santa Teresa, and they were asked to come to the morgue and identify it.

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Alcides Ravel, a farmer from Uruguay, bought his Ford F-350 in 1969, when he was 35 years old. Recently, the 83-year-old man finally put his faithful vehicle to eternal rest, after 48 years of service, by burying it on his farm.

For most people, trucks are mere tools to be used and sold when they outlive their usefulness, but that’s not the case of Alcides Ravel. Although his old truck had been broken down for over four years and mechanics had told him that it was beyond fixing, he couldn’t bring himself to sell it to the scrapyard. Instead, he kept it safe from the elements in a shed on his farm, near the town of Barker, until he was finally ready to part with it. Three weeks ago, he buried his faithful companion on his land, a “small gesture” in honor of nearly five decades of service.

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A seemingly harmless doll has been dubbed the “Peruvian Annabelle” after the family that owns it claimed that they have been terrorized by it for the last seven years.

In a YouTube video that recently went viral, the Nunez family, in Callao, Peru, explain that they have witnessed various paranormal events connected to “Sarita”, a blonde, blue-eyed doll that they received seven years ago. Mother-of-three Ivonne Nunez said that it was a gift from a niece that has since died, and even though strange things started happening soon after the girl passed away, she just couldn’t bring herself to throw away the doll. It’s the last thing reminding her of her niece and sister-in-law, the latter of which reportedly took her own life in the same house they live in today.

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People report cases of paranormal activity somewhere around the world virtually every day, but it’s not often that you hear police officers actually confirming these occurrences. However, that’s exactly what happened a couple of days ago in a Chilean city, when police investigating a domestic disturbance were allegedly attacked by mysterious forces.

On February 26, 2017, a group of Carabineros – Chilean police force – were called to investigate a home in Puerto Montt, after the desperate owners called the emergency number to complain that they were being terrorized by unnatural forces. When they arrived at the house in the municipality of municipality of Fe y Esperanza, they noticed several broken windows and a partially burned mattress in the yard. The owners were outside and as soon as they saw the police approaching they started telling them that there was strange paranormal activity inside the house. Obviously, the Carabineros didn’t believe them, but they quickly changed their mind once they went inside to investigate.

Second corporal Boris Olavarría González, of the Sixth Police Station in Puerto Montt, told reporters that he and his colleagues were questioning the owners inside the house when a trowel fell from the attic like somebody had thrown it down. After checking the attic and confirming that it was empty, González claims that he called out the “demon” asking it to leave. After receiving no response, he decided to go back outside, but on his way to the front door he was struck from behind by a knife.

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Jarvis Chimenes Pavao, considered one of the most dangerous drug traffickers in South America, was serving an 8-year sentence in Tacumbu Prison, when police raided his cell to find it was actually a luxury suite.

Pavao was due to complete his sentence for money laundering next year, at which point he was likely to face extradition to his home country of Brazil, but Paraguayan police recently learned that he planned to escape by blowing a hole in the prison wall. To prevent Pavao from pulling an “El Chapo”, they raided his cell only to find that instead of an austere room, he was living in a luxurious three-room suite complete with air-conditioning, private bathroom, conference room, kitchen, library and multiple flat-screen TVs.

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