The discovery of the Malagana Treasure began with an accident in a sugar-cane field at Hacienda Malagana, which is situated on the flatlands of the fertile Cauca river valley, near the city of Palmira in western Colombia. A worker was driving a a tractor across the field when the ground suddenly collapsed, and the vehicle fell into a large hole. As the driver inspected his predicament, something shiny caught his eye. The object was made of gold, and the hole turned out to be an ancient hypogeum. The worker removed some of the goldwork items and quietly sold them.Before long, his activities caught the attention of others. Between October and December 1992, hoards of gold-seekers arrived to Hacienda Malagana's sugar-cane field. According to newspaper accounts, the looters numbered as many as 5,000. Reporters on the scene captured the bedlam on camera and published their photographs in newspapers. Even the police and army on the scene were ineffective in controlling the chaos, including one murder, and the wide scale destruction of the ancient cemetery.
Countless artifacts were carried off by the treasure hunters. The weight of the gold objects that were taken from the site has been estimated at 350 pounds by one source and between 310 and 400 pounds by another, who speculates that the amount might even have been greater than 400 pounds.
Late in 1992 the Gold Museum in Bogotá received an impressive assortment of the gold objects made in an unfamiliar style. Research revealed that the source of the artifacts was the Hacienda Malagana site.