European police arrested dozens of suspects and seized thousands of stolen goods last year after joint physical and cyber operations, according to Europol.
Operation Pandora VII involved police in Austria, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Croatia, Cyprus, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Sweden, and Bosnia and Herzegovina.
As with previous iterations, its purpose was to crack down on the thriving international trade in stolen art. Police in the region, led by Spain’s Guardia Civil and supported by Europol and Interpol, have arrested 60 people and recovered 11,049 stolen items.
Most of the operations took place online, where ancient artifacts are frequently traded.
To learn more about our cyber policing efforts, see Europol’s ‘Hackathon’ Identifying Hundreds of Human Trafficking Victims.
During a two-week “cyber patrol” in May and October last year, officers executed 8,495 checks and seized 4,017 stolen goods. These include:
- Italian Command for the Protection of Cultural Heritage (carabinieri weapons) seized from the online marketplace.The book was originally stolen from the monastery archives
- 3073 ancient coins released from online sales platform by Polish police
As part of the operation, the pan-regional police also carried out thousands of checks at airports, ports, border crossings, auction houses, museums and private homes, Europol explained.
Some of the recovered artifacts were stolen in church robberies in northern Portugal over a decade.
Europol says 130 investigations are ongoing, which means more seizures and arrests are expected.
The annual Operation Pandora Initiative first began in 2016, when officers consulted Interpol’s stolen art database to identify missing items.
