Thieves steal Bronze Age gold from Spanish museum

Thieves swept through a museum in eastern Spain in four minutes and stole much of the Treasure of Villena, one of Europe’s most important Bronze Age gold collections, officials said.

The raid targeted the Villena Museum in Alicante province, where the treasure — a trove of bowls, bottles, bracelets and other objects dating to about 1,000 BC — is kept. Police were still assessing exactly how many pieces were taken, but the museum confirmed to the BBC that rings, bowls and bracelets were among the stolen items.

“The alarm at the Villena Museum went off around 5:20 a.m.,” a Villena town council spokesman said. By 5:24 a.m., the thieves had left the building, he said, describing the operation as “super-fast and super-professional.”

Villena Mayor Fulgencio Cerdan said the thieves had taken “most of the treasure.” El Pais reported that he said all the gold had been stolen. “We are absolutely devastated, I’m even trembling,” Cerdan told journalists, his voice breaking, according to CBS News. “The truth is that for those of us from Villena, this destroys us. It’s part of our heritage, of our wealth.”

The collection contains more than 50 objects, according to CBS News and Al Jazeera, while the BBC reported it consists of more than 60 Bronze Age objects. The known pieces include 29 bracelets, 11 bowls, three bottles and other items. The trove is mainly gold, but also includes pieces made of silver, iron and amber. Its historical value is considered incalculable, while the gold alone is worth about $2 million, according to the mayor.

Officials said the robbery may have begun with a diversion. Shortly before the museum alarm sounded, another alarm went off at the city’s sports centre. The BBC, citing Spanish media, reported that the sports centre alarm was triggered around 5:15 a.m., drawing police there first. Authorities were investigating whether the thieves deliberately set it off.

Manuel Pineda, the Spanish government’s deputy representative in Alicante, said the thieves arrived in several vehicles and apparently entered the museum “through a window,” according to CBS News.

The Villena council spokesman rejected any suggestion that the museum’s security had failed. “All security systems were activated,” he said, insisting there had been “no failure” by the museum.

The Treasure of Villena was discovered in 1963 by archaeologist Jose Maria Soler in a vessel sunk in a dried-out riverbed in Villena. The collection has long been closely tied to the town’s identity, officials said.

The theft is the latest in a series of high-profile museum raids across Europe. Last October, thieves broke into the Louvre Museum in Paris in broad daylight and escaped in less than eight minutes with jewelry worth $102 million. CBS News reported that suspected thieves in that case have been arrested and charged, but none of the jewels have been recovered except for a crown dropped during the escape.

Other recent cases include the theft of four works “of extraordinary value” by Renaissance artist Antonello da Messina from a museum in Sicily, according to Italy’s culture ministry. Italian police also said they recovered paintings by Renoir, Cezanne and Matisse worth more than $10.4 million that had been stolen from the Magnani-Rocca Foundation museum near Parma.