Priceless artefacts, including ancient coins, paintings, furniture, musical instruments and statuettes, have been seized in a four-month police operation across 28 countries.
More than 9,400 items were recovered and 52 people arrested in an operation targeting illicit trafficking in cultural goods, carried out between June and September last year, Interpol said on Wednesday.
More than 170 investigations are ongoing, with more seizures and arrests expected as investigators “continue their pursuit of those spoiling and destroying cultural heritage”, the international criminal police operation said.
Operation Pandora VI, led by Spain, involved actions in airports and at border crossing points, as well as in auction houses, museums and private homes. Online markets were monitored for suspicious sales.
French customs officials seized 4,231 archaeological objects, including about 3,000 coins, as well as bells, buckles, rings and pieces of pottery that had been looted from archaeological sites by an individual using a metal detector.
Separately, they recovered three ancient statuettes dating back to La Tolita-Tumaco culture, whose people inhabited the area along the present-day border between Colombia and Ecuador in the first millennium AD.
Spanish police seized 91 Roman gold coins, looted from an archaeological site and worth an estimated half a million euros on the black market. Their investigation began when the coins were spotted at an auction house in Madrid.
US customs and border protection officials recovered a shipment containing 13 Mexican artefacts from the post-classic to the Aztec era, including a skull and 12 adzes, a cutting tool.
A 13th century processional cross was returned to the Evangelical Church Museum of Cisnădie, Romania.
Meanwhile, police in the Netherlands recovered two Kees Verweij paintings that had been reported as stolen, after investigating an online sales catalogue from an Amsterdam auction house.
A marble column dating from the Roman period, and 13 ancient coins and three pottery vessels dating from the Hellenistic period, were seized by Greek police.
Seven European law enforcement authorities recovered 90 metal detectors destined for illicit use at archaeological sites.
Operation Pandora, coordinated by Europol, Interpol and the World Customs Organisation, has resulted in the recovery of 147,050 cultural artefacts and the arrest of 407 people since it was launched in 2016.
