Man found carrying mummy in a food delivery bag in Peru claims its his 'spiritual girlfriend'

Puno, PERU -- A pre-Hispanic mummy, estimated to be between 600 to 800 years old, was discovered in a food delivery cooler bag by Peruvian police over the weekend.

Police told CNN that the mummified remains were found with three men who were drinking in a deserted park in the Peruvian city of Puno on Saturday afternoon.

"A 26-year-old man had a delivery bag labeled 'Pedidos Ya.' Inside they found a mummy," senior agent Marco Antonio Ortega, who is a spokesperson for Puno region's National Police, told CNN. Pedidos Ya is a Latin American food delivery app.

Images of the discovery showed the mummy in a fetal position inside the red delivery bag.

The 26-year-old man, identified by news agency Agence France-Presse as Julio Cesar Bermejo, said he named the remains "Juanita" when speaking to local media, and described them as "like my spiritual girlfriend."

"At home, she's in my room, she sleeps with me. I take care of her," he said in a video, according to AFP.

The Peruvian news agency ANDINA reported Monday that the mummy is in fact believed to be an adult male, and presumed to be from the eastern area of Puno.

It is currently in the custody of the Ministry of Culture, which has classified the mummy as a national cultural asset.

A government official told AFP Tuesday that Cesar Bermejo will remain in detention while investigators look into the case.

Several mummies have previously been found in Peru, which is home to hundreds of archaeological sites of several civilizations that developed before and after the Inca Empire.

In 2021, a mummy estimated to be between 800 and 1,200 years old was unearthed by archeologists at a site near the country's capital city of Lima.