Authorities recovered around 38,000 valuable cultural goods and arrested 80 suspects in 23 countries in the fight against international theft of cultural property, Europeol announced on Thursday.
Spain’s Guardia Civil coordinated the international inquiry, coded Pendora IX and performed law enforcement and customs officers of 23 countries, in 2024 in 2024.
The artifacts were involved in artifacts, coins, musical instruments, paintings and archaeological discoveries with 258 cases reported by the participating countries.
Artifacts recovered from Roman and Penal period
Europeol stated that the operation was the ninth version of Operation Pendora, which targets the smuggling of cultural goods and was established in 2016. Investigation is on, and can make further arrests, Europeol said.
“Officers, therefore 69 metal detectors and 23 devices are seized, usually used for illegal excavation, underlining the constant danger of looting cultural sites,” explained.
Europeol stated that the Italian carbinier had seized more than 300 items, including coins, metal and ceramic pieces, which dating back to Roman and Picic periods as arrows and spears, Europeol said. The artifacts were being introduced for sale online and were discovered in a private apartment.
In Spain, the Guardia Civil destroyed a criminal group involved in archaeological robbery, as they mined 2,500 archaeological, mainly in the city of Tamsia, Roman, Caltiberian city of Tamsia.
Those artifacts looted the bee from the protected archaeological sites in the province of Sex using metal detectors and were solstious through social media platforms.
Meanwhile, a passenger flying from Palma de Mallorca in Spain to Germany was found to carry 55 ancient coins and a ring. A later investigation created an indictment for crimes of looting underwater debris and other archaeological sites.
In that case, a total of 64 items of historical value and 1.576 ancient coins were seized.
In Greece, the department of cultural heritage and antiques of Athens recovered five Byzantine icons. Working on intelligence and using special investigative techniques including undercover officer, three persons were arrested for selling icons for € 70,000.
Cyberinvestigators contributed to operation
In addition to on-the-gounds operations, cyberpatrols were performed during the operation to identify possible illegal online sales of cultural property.
The virtual investigation led to opening new cases, with a total of 4.298 cultural goods seized as a result of cyberpatrols.
Edited by: Scene Sinico
