Police from around the world have worked together to find lots of missing art. detectives were from Interpol, Europol and many national police forces. World Customs Organization also helped with search. police officers found more than 19,000 items of artwork. These include ancient Colombian gold mask that is over 600 years old. There was also carved Roman lion, centuries-old jewellery, and thousands of ancient coins. Many of items the police recovered were stolen from museums and archaeological sites. lot of them were taken from countries at war. thieves took cultural treasures while countries were in mess because of fighting civil wars or wars against other countries.
police arrested 101 art traffickers around world. The art thieves were from Spain, Colombia, Latvia, Afghanistan and Turkey. Interpol said they spent long time monitoring online marketplaces to find art and the thieves. Interpol's secretary-general Jürgen Stock spoke to journalists about how big operation was. He said: "The number of arrests and objects shows scale and global reach of illicit trade in cultural artefacts, where every country with rich heritage is a potential target." Interpol added: "Organised crime has many faces. trafficking of cultural goods is one of them. It is not glamorous business run by flamboyant gentlemen forgers, but by international criminal networks."
