Eighty-five people have been arrested in a strike against art trafficking and over 6,000 works of art have been recovered in a joint operation involving Interpol, Europol and officials from 25 countries.
The operation, called Pandora VIII, was the eighth such operation. This year’s version was spearheaded by Spain’s Guardia Civil working with colleagues from Ukraine, who intercepted 11 gold objects worth €60 million that had been stolen in Ukraine and smuggled to Spain.
The operation involved “several thousand checks” at airports, ports, highway crossings, museums, auction houses and on line. Other recoveries included a 17th-century statue of St Bartholomew stolen in Czechia in 1994 and works by a Vietnamese artist that were recovered by France.
The countries participating in ‘Pandora VIII’ included Albania, Austria, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Croatia, Cyprus, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Malta, Montenegro, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Serbia, Sweden, Ukraine and the UK.
Image: recovered gold objects in photo from Europol
