Three ancient gold bracelets excavated from Romanian ruins but stolen by unidentified persons were brought back to the country from Belgium on Tuesday, February 20th. Romanian prosecutors and police officers retrieved the bracelet from the MAS Museum in Antwerp.
The three bracelets date from the end of the second millennium BC, the beginning of the middle period, and the Bronze Age and Hallstatt periods.
According to the Public Prosecutor’s Office of the High Court of Cassation (PÎCCJ), cultural property protected by law was stolen by unknown persons and subsequently alienated. Two of his pieces were identified when they were put up for auction in Monaco. The third one was discovered during a raid on the Belgian residence of the person who put the two bracelets up for auction in Monte Carlo.
“On October 27, 2020, the Belgian Judicial Authority reported that two bracelets were listed in the catalog of the Monte Carlo auction, and on November 11, 2020, the Criminal Investigation Agency of the Judicial Police within the IGPR-DIC, the National Cultural The Heritage Protection Authority has filed a case for qualified theft,” said the PÎCCJ, which took over the case on March 31, 2022.
Initially, the ordinance began investigating Inrem for theft, but the scope was later expanded to include illegal exports. The ordinance also ordered the continuation of criminal prosecution against the suspects in the concealment.
Prosecutors said evidence showed that the three bracelets were unearthed from an archaeological site in northwestern Romania. Therefore, they needed an export certificate to take them out of the country, which investigators say does not exist.
“On June 7, 2022, the PÎCCJ – Criminal Investigation Division issued a European investigation order addressed to the Belgian judicial authority and requested its transfer/sending to the Romanian judicial authority. […] “We have submitted physical evidence (three gold bracelets kept by the trial judge at the Court of First Instance of Bourne, Belgium) and a copy of the file pending before the trial judge,” PÎCCJ’s press release reads. It’s dark.
Authorities confiscated the bracelet. These will be kept at the Romanian National Museum of History until the case is resolved and multidisciplinary expertise is provided.
irina.marica@romania-insider.com
(Photo source: Mpublic.ro)