It is not immediately known how many of the 50-plus mainly gold objects from the Treasure of Villena were taken in the raid on Thursday.<\/p>\n
Published On 27 Aug 202627 Aug 2026<\/p>\n
Thieves have raided the Treasure of Villena, one of the greatest Bronze Age gold collections, in the latest high-profile heist on a European museum, officials said.<\/p>\n
It was not immediately known how many of the 50-plus mainly gold objects in the collection were taken in the heist on Thursday, as police were still making an inventory, a spokesperson for the council in the Spanish town of Villena said.<\/p>\n
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\u201cThe alarm at the Villena Museum went off around 5:20am,\u201d said the spokesperson, adding that by 5:24am the thieves had left the building.<\/p>\n
The operation was \u201csuper-fast and super-professional\u201d, he added.<\/p>\n
The 29 bracelets, 11 bowls, three bottles, and other miscellaneous pieces in the Treasure of Villena are kept in a small museum in the Alicante province town.<\/p>\n
Though mainly of gold, there are also pieces of silver, iron and amber, all dating back to about 1,000 BC. The treasure was discovered in 1963 by archaeologist Jose Maria Soler in a vessel sunk in a dried-out riverbed in Villena.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll security systems were activated,\u201d according to the Villena spokesman, who insisted there had been \u201cno failure\u201d by the museum.<\/p>\n
Shortly before the robbery, another alarm went off at the city\u2019s sports centre, and authorities were investigating whether that was a diversion created by the thieves, the spokesperson added.<\/p>\n
There have been a series of brazen raids of institutions across Europe in recent months.<\/p>\n
Last October, thieves broke into the Louvre Museum<\/a> in Paris in broad daylight, escaping in less than eight minutes with jewellery worth $102m.<\/p>\n And earlier this month, four works \u201cof extraordinary value\u201d by Renaissance artist Antonello da Messina were stolen from a museum in Sicily<\/a>, Italy\u2019s Ministry of Culture said.<\/p>\n