One of the most important Bronze Age gold sets in Europe was stolen this Thursday (27) at the Villena Museum, in southeastern Spain. In just four minutes, criminals broke into the building and took pieces from the so-called Treasure of Villena, a collection of about 60 pieces, many of them gold and approximately 3,000 years old.
The robbery occurs a few days after the European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation (Europol) released a report warning of a change in the profile of museum robberies in Europe. According to the document, criminals have increasingly resorted to violent methods to invade cultural institutions, focusing on gold, jewelry, precious metals and high-value artifacts.
The episode in Spain adds to a series of attacks that, in just over two years, have hit museums across the European continent, demonstrating a growing trend of violence and organization on the part of criminals who engage in this type of heritage crime against cultural institutions.
