Police seize 19,000 stolen artefacts in international art trafficking crackdown
Two huge international police operations targeting the trade in stolen artworks and archaeological artefacts have led to the arrest of 101 people and the recovery of more than 19,000 items, including a pre-Colombian gold mask, a carved Roman lion and thousands of ancient coins.
The joint initiatives - which involved officers from Interpol, Europol, the World Customs Organization and many national police forces - focused on the criminal networks that steal from museums, plunder archaeological sites and take advantage of the chaos in war-afflicted countries to loot their cultural treasures.
Details of the two concurrent investigations carried out last autumn are emerging only now for operational reasons.
Police officers in Spain recovered several rare pre-Colombian objects at Madrid’s Barajas airport, including a unique Tumaco gold mask, gold figurines and pieces of ancient jewelery. All had been illegally acquired by looting in Colombia.
Three traffickers were arrested in Spain, while Colombian police carried out a series of searches in Bogotá, resulting in the confiscation of a further 242 pre-Colombian objects - the largest such seizure in the country’s history.
MORE INFO HERE
No comments:
Post a Comment