Thieves Pull Off Lightning- Quick Heist of Ancient Gold

A lightning-quick break-in has stripped a small Spanish museum of one of Europe's most important hoards of Bronze Age gold. Authorities say thieves hit the Villena Museum around 5:20am local time on Thursday and were gone four minutes later, making off with most of the famed Treasure of Villena, a collection of dozens of pieces discovered in 1963 that dates to roughly 1000BC, per CBS News and AFP. The haul included dozens of gold bracelets, plus bowls and miscellaneous silver, iron, and amber pieces.

The gold alone is estimated at about $2 million, according to the mayor of the city of Villena. Officials describe the operation as highly "super-professional" and say all security systems were functioning. Another alarm at a nearby sports center minutes earlier is being probed as a possible diversion. One object the thieves didn't get their hands on: a small gold crown from a statue of Jesus as a child, which they dropped while fleeing, per Bloomberg. The theft adds to a run of recent high-profile museum heists across Europe targeting art, jewels, and antiquities, per AFP.