[CPProt.net] Italian police recover thousands of artifacts

[MSN CPPnet (Ton Cremers)]

July 26, 2005 

Italian police recover thousands of artifacts

ROME (AP) - Italian police have recovered some 3,000 ancient Roman artifacts
including coins and jewelry that were dug up and were about to be sold on
the black market, officials said Tuesday. 

The artifacts, which span centuries of Roman history, were seized in a
series of raids last month in Verona, said Capt. Corrado Catesi of a
regional police unit for the protection of Italy's cultural heritage. 

News of the finds was not released until Tuesday because the investigation
in the northeastern Italian city was still underway, Catesi said. 

Investigators believe the artifacts were found during clandestine
archeological digs in various locations in Italy and Bulgaria. 

No one was arrested in the raids, but Verona prosecutor Maria Beatrice
Zanotti was investigating five people - an Italian and four Bulgarians -
suspected of trafficking in stolen goods, Catesi said. 

The five were not necessarily connected, but were all trying to sell the
items to private collectors on the illegal antiquities market, he said. 

Catesi said the artifacts would probably end up in public museums after
archeologists have examined and authenticated them.