4 minutes, priceless treasure gone: Thieves pull off superfast Bronze Age gold heist in Spain
&imwidth=600&imheight=450&format=webp&quality=medium "4 minutes, priceless treasure gone: Thieves pull off superfast Bronze Age gold heist in Spain")
Representative Image. Photograph: (unsplash)
Thieves carried out a superfast four-minute raid at Spain’s Treasure of Villena museum, stealing most of the ancient collection, including gold worth around 1.7 million euros ($2 million).
Thieves staged a superfast raid at the historic Treasure of Villena museum in Spain, stealing most of its collection in a high-profile heist that lasted just four minutes. The stolen gold alone is worth around 1.7 million euros ($2 million). The collection also includes several other historical artefacts whose value cannot be determined.
The raid targeted more than 50 objects, mainly made of gold, at the museum in the Spanish town of Villena.
"The alarm at the Villena Museum went off around 5:20 am (0320 GMT)," a town council spokesman said. He added that the thieves had left the building by 5:24 am.
"They've taken most of the treasure," Villena mayor Fulgencio Cerdan told journalists, as reported by AFP.
"We are absolutely devastated; I'm even trembling. The truth is that for those of us from Villena, this destroys us. It's part of our heritage, of our wealth," Cerdan said.
What was inside the treasure?
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The Treasure of Villena collection contains 29 bracelets, 11 bowls, three bottles and several other pieces. The items are displayed at a small museum in the town in Alicante province.
Most of the artefacts are made of gold, while others contain silver, iron and amber. They date back to around 1,000 BC.
Archaeologist Jose Maria Soler discovered the treasure in 1963. He found it inside a vessel buried in a dried-out riverbed in Villena.
How the thieves entered the museum
The thieves arrived in several vehicles and apparently entered the museum "through a window", according to Manuel Pineda, the Spanish government's deputy representative in Alicante.
"All security systems were activated," the Villena spokesman said, insisting there had been "no failure" by the museum.
An alarm also went off at the city's sports centre shortly before the robbery. Authorities were investigating whether the alarm was deliberately triggered as a diversion, the spokesperson said.
Europe sees more museum raids
The Villena heist comes after a series of high-profile thefts from cultural institutions across Europe.
Last October, thieves broke into the Louvre museum in Paris in broad daylight. They escaped in less than eight minutes with jewellery worth $102 million.
Four works "of extraordinary value" by Renaissance artist Antonello da Messina were also stolen from a museum in Sicily, Italy's culture ministry said on Sunday.
Two days earlier, Italian police said they had recovered paintings by Renoir, Cezanne and Matisse worth more than $10.4 million. Thieves had stolen the paintings from the Magnani-Rocca Foundation museum near Parma.
