Thieves steal Bronze Age artifacts from Spanish museum in four-minute heist
The Treasure of Villena is a unique trove of almost ten kilos of gold, bowls, bottles and bracelets dating back to the Bronze Age.
Bronze Age artifacts, including gold rings, were pilfered from Spain's Villena Museum in a swift four-minute operation. The stolen items are part of the "Treasure of Villena," one of the most significant prehistoric gold collections, located in the Alicante province.
The collection, primarily composed of gold objects but also featuring silver, iron, and amber pieces, dates back to approximately 1,000 BC. It comprises over 60 Bronze Age artifacts, including 29 bracelets, 11 bowls, and three bottles. Police are currently inventorying the exact number of items taken in the early Friday morning raid, though the museum confirmed that rings, bowls, and bracelets were among them.
A spokesperson for the Villena town council described the museum heist as "super fast and super professional." The robbery commenced with a diversion: alarms at a local sports center sounded around 05:15 local time (03:15 GMT), drawing police there first. The museum's alarm then activated around 05:20, giving the thieves a mere four minutes to clear out before officers arrived.
Villena Mayor Fulgencio Cerdán stated that the thieves "stole a large part of the treasure," specifically all the gold, according to El Pais. Cerdán expressed the town's devastation, saying, "They've taken most of the treasure... For those of us from Villena, this destroys us. It's part of our heritage, of our wealth."
The collection was unearthed in 1963 by archaeologist Jose María Soler in a dried-out riverbed in Villena. Despite the robbery, a Villena council spokesman maintained there was "no failure" on the museum's part, asserting that "all security systems were activated."
This incident marks the latest in a series of high-profile museum heists across Europe. Last year, in October 2025, thieves executed a brazen, eight-minute daylight robbery at the Louvre Museum in Paris, making off with $102 million (£75 million) worth of jewelry before escaping on scooters. Just last week, Italy's culture ministry reported the theft of four "extraordinary value" works by Renaissance artist Antonello da Messina from a museum in Sicily. Earlier this month, Italian police recovered paintings by Renoir, Cezanne, and Matisse, valued at over $10.4 million (£7.6 million), which had been stolen from the Magnani-Rocca Foundation museum near Parma.