Jamie Rolando Urbina Torres, the mayor of a small town in Peru, lay in a coffin and pretended to be a dead Coronavirus patient to avoid being arrested.

Torres was caught by police violating coronavirus lockdown rules while drinking with friends. When officers came to arrest him in the town of Tantará, in the south of the country, he lay down in an open casket and played dead.

A photo of the mayor wearing a face mask and lying in the coffin has been circulated online.

Police say he violated curfew and social distancing laws in order to drink liquor with his friends, and was drunk when he was arrested.

It is not clear exactly where he and his friends were drinking, or why there were open caskets there.

Torres has previously been accused by locals of failing to take the threat of the virus seriously and failing to implement safety precautions in the town. Locals say Torres has spent just eight days in the town since the start of the lockdown, and has failed to put in place any local safety measures.