Museum staff found guilty of stealing the treasures of Croesus

[Евгений]

Director and nine staff members of the museum in the city of Usak in Turkey found guilty of stealing two items from the collection of the treasures of the Lydian king Croesus, reports the Associated Press. The museum director sentenced to 13 years in prison, the other defendants received lesser terms.

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A coin and a gold brooch, kept in the Usak museum, were replaced by fakes in early 2006. The substitution was discovered in May of that year, when the Turkish police received an anonymous letter with information about phishing and began checking the authenticity of items.

Location of originals are still unknown.

Coin and a gold brooch were part of a large "Lydian hoard" of 363 gold objects, some of which were smuggled from Turkey in 1960. In 1993, these two items were returned to Turkey at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art.