Coins, pendants, brooches, statues and spearheads worth an estimated £76,110 were among the antiquities found hidden inside a lorry full of trousers at the Port of Dover on Tuesday 27 October 2020. The driver was working as a courier on behalf of a Bulgarian organised crime group and was jailed for two years in March 2021 after pleading guilty to transferring criminal property. The investigation into his criminal activities was led by Kent Police detectives with assistance from the Metropolitan Police Service’s specialist Art and Antiquities Unit and the Bulgarian authorities. Detective Inspector Shaun Creed of Kent Police’s Border Policing team was among those who attended a ceremony at the Bulgarian Embassy in London where the artefacts were formally handed back to the nation where they were stolen from along with other items seized during separate investigations carried out by the Metropolitan Police Service. DI Creed said: ‘The illegal excavation of antiques is an ongoing issue in Bulgaria, depriving its citizens of an important part of their cultural heritage.
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The criminals responsible think nothing of the harm it causes when they smuggle their ill-gotten gains into countries like the UK, often using the proceeds from their smuggling to fund other international criminal activities. ‘It was an honour and a privilege for Kent Police to be invited to attend the Bulgarian Embassy for this special occasion, and to formally return the items that should never have found their way into the UK in the first place.
