A WELL-PLANNED heist saw thieves walk away with one of Europe’s most important collections of prehistoric gold pieces from an Alicante province museum.
66 original pieces of the ‘Treasure of Villena’ were stolen from the Villena Museum with the collection described as ‘priceless’.
The Guardia Civil are leading investigations into the theft which took less than four minutes to execute at around 5.20am on Thursday.
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Security cameras recorded several people involved in the robbery with a number of vehicles used in their escape.
The value of the collection based on just the gold alone is said to be around €1.5 million.
The robbers entered the museum after ripping out a window on the side of the building to speedily execute the heist.
The stolen artefacts date back around 3,000 years and weigh a total of around 10 kilos and consist of objects, including bowls, bracelets, and ornaments, made from gold, silver, amber, and iron.
For years, Villena displayed a replica of the treasure before moving the authentic collection into the city’s current museum, which opened two years ago.
Minutes before the robbery, a false alarm was reported at a sports centre in Villena, and the Guardia Civil is investigating where it was triggered on purpose to act as a diversion.
The Guardia is looking at whether a gang specialising in stealing historical artifacts was behind the robbery, as well as the possibility that it was carried out on commission because of the unique nature of the objects.
The Treasure of Villena was discovered in December 1963, with most of it hidden inside a vessel buried in a dry riverbed in the Villena area.
It is considered a key collection for understanding prehistoric metalwork in the western Mediterranean and, alongside treasures discovered in the royal tombs of Mycenae in Greece, one of the most important collections of Bronze Age gold tableware.
Two of the treasure’s objects were also likely made using iron from a meteorite, according to scientific research published in 2023, potentially dating them to the Late Bronze Age, before people in the region began producing iron from terrestrial ores.
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