In a museum heist in Villena, Spain, thieves stole most of the 3,000-year-old "Treasure of Villena", said to be the most important prehistoric trove in Europe, The Guardian reported. The treasure is a priceless collection of Bronze Age gold bowls, bottles, and bracelets worth millions. According to the report, the heist was lightning-fast, as it lasted just a few minutes.
"They've taken most of the treasure," Fulgencio Cerdan, who is the mayor of Villena, told the media. "We are absolutely devastated, I'm even trembling. The truth is that for those of us from Villena, this destroys us. It's part of our heritage, of our wealth."
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How the robbery unfolded
Early in the morning, a false alarm went off at a nearby sports centre, drawing local police away from the scene. Moments later, masked thieves broke into the Villena Museum through a side window, smashed through armoured display cases, and cleared out nearly 60 historic gold artefacts. By the time authorities responded to the museum's alarm, the thieves were already gone.
"The alarm at the Villena Museum went off around 5.20 am [4.20 am BST]," a spokesperson for the town council confirmed as quoted in the report. They added that the heist was "super-fast and super-professional", and the thieves had left the building by 5.24 am.
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Thieves left behind something valuable
In their hurry to grab shiny gold, the robbers completely ignored one of the most scientifically valuable items in the entire collection, which was an ancient iron bracelet made from a meteorite that fell to Earth from outer space.
Ignacio Montero, Research Professor at the Instituto de Historia-CSIC, told Science Alert, "This confirms that the sole interest was the economic value of the gold and that the theft is unrelated to the historical value of the cultural heritage," he told ScienceAlert.
"If the underlying motivation is limited to the economic value of the gold, the possibility of irreversible destruction becomes evident; this would entail a permanent loss that would preclude any future research," Montero added.
