A Massive International Sting Operation Spanning 103 Countries Has Recovered Thousands of Stolen Artworks and Antiquities

Some 19,000 stolen
archaeological artifacts and artworks, including pre-Columbian gold
relics and thousands of ancient coins, have been recovered in a
global sting operation coordinated by Interpol and the World
Customs Organization.

The operation, code-named ATHENA
II, was carried out last fall in conjunction with PANDORA IV, a
Europe-focused effort coordinated by Europol and the Spanish Civil
Guard. Together, the two campaigns resulted in the arrest of 101
suspects and 300 new investigations opened across 103
countries. 

The news was withheld from the
public until this
week, due to “operational reasons.”

“The number of arrests and
objects show the scale and global reach of the illicit trade in
cultural artifacts, where every country with a rich heritage is a
potential target,” said INTERPOL secretary general Jürgen Stock in
a statement.

Investigators tracked more than
8,600, or 28 percent, of the recovered objects through black-market
online sales—an increasing force in international trafficking
rings. A single such sale led investigators to 2,500 ancient coins
in Argentina and 1,375 coins in Latvia. 

At Barajas airport in Madrid,
the Spanish National Police and Colombian police recovered a trove
of looted pre-Columbian artifacts, including a gold mask and
several gold figurines. Authorities arrested three traffickers
connected to the case and traced the relics back to a house in
Bogotá, where they uncovered an additional 242 stolen objects.
Another 971 cultural objects were intercepted at Kabul airport in
Afghanistan.

Other objects recovered in the
operation include paintings, fossils, ceramics, and
weapons.

“Organized crime has many
faces,” added Catherine de Bolle, Europol’s executive director.
“The trafficking of cultural goods is one of them: It is not a
glamorous business run by flamboyant gentlemen forgers, but by
international criminal networks. You cannot look at it separately
from combating trafficking in drugs and weapons: We know that the
same groups are engaged, because it generates big
money.”

The post A Massive International Sting Operation Spanning
103 Countries Has Recovered Thousands of Stolen Artworks and
Antiquities appeared first on artnet News.