Thieves Steal Bronze Age Artifacts from Spanish Museum in Four-Minute Heist
BBC Homepage
Skip to content
Accessibility Help
Your account
Home
News
Sport
Earth
Reel
Worklife
Travel
Culture
Future
Music
TV
Weather
Sounds
More menu
More menu
Search BBC
Home
Climate
World
UK
Business
Tech
Science
Entertainment & Arts
Health
In Pictures
More
BBC Verify
Newsbeat
World
Africa
Asia
Australia
Europe
Latin America
Middle East
US & Canada
Thieves have stolen jewelry and artifacts from one of the most important prehistoric gold collections at a museum in the Spanish province of Alicante.
The Treasure of Villena—a unique trove of almost ten kilos of gold, bowls, bottles, and bracelets dating back to the Bronze Age—was targeted.
By Gabriela Pomeroy
Published 53 minutes ago
Thieves have stolen jewelry and artifacts from one of the most important prehistoric gold collections at a museum in the Spanish province of Alicante.
The raid, which took place in the early hours of Friday morning, involved a diversion at a local sports center, followed by the activation of the museum’s alarm around 05:20 local time (03:15 GMT). Despite police’s swift response, it took the thieves just four minutes to sweep through the museum and escape.
According to the Mayor of Villena, Fulgencio Cerdán, the thieves "stole a large part of the treasure," specifically all the gold items.
The collection, discovered in 1963 by archaeologist Jose María Soler, consists of more than 60 bronze age objects, including 29 bracelets, 11 bowls, three bottles, and other miscellaneous pieces.
"We are devastated," said Cerdán. "It’s part of our heritage, of our wealth."
While the Villena council spokesman insisted there had been "no failure" by the museum, acknowledging that "all security systems were activated," the past year has seen a series of high-profile heists on European museums.
In October 2025, thieves broke into the Louvre museum in Paris in broad daylight, stealing jewelry worth $102 million before escaping on scooters.
Recently, four works "of extraordinary value" by Renaissance artist Antonello da Messina were stolen from a museum in Sicily, Italy, and Italian police recovered paintings by Renoir, Cezanne, and Matisse worth over $10.4 million from the Magnani-Rocca Foundation museum near Parma earlier this month.
