Looters emptied a Moche tomb at Sipán in 1987, police shot their leader, and the archaeologist called in found the Lord of Sipán untouched below it

In early 1987 a gang led by Ernil Bernal tunnelled into a mud-brick pyramid at Huaca Rajada near the village of Sipán. On 6 February 1987 they ransacked a tomb and carried gold and silver out in rice sacks, smashing pots and bones. Within days the pieces were offered to dealers, and word reached buyers in Los Angeles and London. A dispute over the spoils left one looter dead, and another went to the police. On 25 February police in Chiclayo asked Walter Alva, director of the Brüning Museum, to examine 23 seized objects, including a gold mask. Police had recovered only a fraction of the cache; the rest had been sold and shipped abroad. Alva began digging at once with two workers and two police guards. Villagers who called the tombs their ancestors' inheritance tried to drive the team off, and the team sometimes slept in the tunnels. In April 1987 police raided the Bernal house with Alva present; Ernil ran, an officer fired, and he was mortally wounded. Sipán's football team is named after him. Below the looted tomb Alva's team found an intact royal burial: a man in a gold headdress with about 400 ornaments, three adult women, two adult men and a sacrificed llama. They excavated about a dozen more tombs. In 2002 residents told a reporter the archaeologists took the treasure and left the village without running water. The Royal Tombs of Sipán Museum opened in Lambayeque that year with Alva as director.