Culture Ministry seeks museum collections data to curb rising thefts

Spain’s Culture Ministry is asking regional governments to identify the gold, silver and precious-stone objects held in their museums after a series of thefts targeting valuable artefacts.

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None of the three affected museums was directly managed by the ministry, so we have no security powers.

The request follows the theft of the Bronze Age Villena Treasure from the Villena Museum in Alicante. In another case, four masked people broke a display case at the Albacete Museum, stole several coins and burned a car while fleeing. In April, thieves took 149 gold coins from part of the Villanueva Treasure at the Badajoz Museum.

None of the three museums is directly managed by the ministry, which said it therefore lacks security authority over them. The ministry has raised its concerns with the National Police’s Historical Heritage Brigade and asked for cooperation to prevent further incidents. Police then requested information from the ministry, which in turn approached the autonomous communities for detailed collection data.

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What we are seeing is that what matters to the thieves is not so much the historical, archaeological or artistic value of the pieces, but the material.

Ministry sources said the thieves appeared more interested in the materials than in the historical, archaeological or artistic value of the objects. They described the thefts as part of a wider European trend identified by Europol, involving increasingly aggressive and less organised attacks on objects that can be easily transformed, such as gold and jewellery. The ministry said some regions had not supplied the requested information, including Valencia, which did not answer requests issued on August 11 and 24. A meeting on museum security took place on August 28, and another is planned in the coming days. Police, the Civil Guard and regional forces continue investigating the cases.

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These are not gentleman's burglaries.