The National Police has recovered 71 looted archaeological pieces that had been exhibited in a gallery in Barcelona. These are fragments from the Visigoth, Nassarite, Caliphate and Renaissance periods valued at more than 403,000 euros. Once the investigation, which lasted for two years, was concluded, the police arrested six people, five in Granada and one in Barcelona, ??who were charged with a crime against historical heritage, membership of a criminal group and money laundering .
The officers of the historical heritage brigade were alarmed when they attended Feriarte 2021, a large fair of antiques and art galleries held in Madrid. At a stand, they spotted a caliphate-style capital that caught their attention, because similar pieces with an illicit origin had recently appeared on the market. From there, the agents asked the exhibitors to certify the provenance of the capital and warned that they had acquired it in a shop in Granada, together with two other capitals, for which they had issued an invoice with irregularities: without a number and without breaking down the amount of VAT. In addition, each archaeological piece must be accompanied by a notarial deed attesting ownership. Three acts of notarial manifestations were provided in the name of the same person and which had been drawn up by a notary in Granada. These documents described the origin and ownership of the capitals, emphasizing that they had been inherited and had been in the hands of the family for several generations, as an ancestor had been a restorer at the Alhambra in the 19th century. However, the agents found it suspicious that the provenance of the objects was not proven and proceeded to intervene. One of the tricks used by this group was to try to prove, even if it was a lie, that the piece came from a family heirloom to justify that the object had been removed from the site before the Historic Heritage Act of 1985 came into force, which prohibits these practices and prohibits the private ownership of archaeological elements.
The police pulled the trigger and arrived at an antiques shop in Barcelona. They recovered some pieces in particular from Valencia, Madrid and Granada, but most were in a specialized gallery in Barcelona. The person in charge of the establishment gave way to the looted objects through his trade. The plot, however, was directed from Granada by three brothers who ran an antiques business in that city. They looked for looted pieces of archeology and when they located them, they prepared the necessary documentation for each piece to give it a past that would allow it to be introduced to the legal market, which is what produces the most profits. They signed sales contracts in the name of frontmen and sometimes moved the pieces to the gallery in Barcelona so that they would not be associated with the rest of the organization.
Among the 71 pieces involved are capitals from the Nassarite and Caliphate periods, bases, columns, plaster arches, Islamic beams, a fragment of an arrocabe, an Arab funerary stele, various sculptures and four Visigoth belt buckles. The most valuable is a fragment of arrocabe valued at 80,000 euros. All objects have been transferred to the National Archaeological Museum, the Museum of Granada and the Museum of Prehistory in Valencia.
