Police have arrested 101 suspects and recovered thousands of stolen art treasures in a global investigation into criminal gangs.

The operation across 103 countries led to the discovery of artefacts stolen from museums and looted from archaeological sites.

The items retrieved include paintings, ceramics, ancient jewellery, gold figurines, historical weapons and coins, many from war-torn countries, some of it priceless.

In a series of raids, investigators also seized more than a hundred metal detectors.

Interpol’s secretary-general Jurgen Stock said: “The number of arrests and objects show the scale and global reach of the illicit trade in cultural artefacts, where every country with a rich heritage is a potential target.

“If you then take the significant amounts of money involved and the secrecy of the transactions, this also presents opportunities for money laundering and fraud as well as financing organised crime networks.”

In Argentina, police seized 2,500 ancient coins being offered for sale online, the largest ever such recovery. In a similar operation, Latvian police retrieved 1,375 ancient coins.

Afghan Customs seized 971 cultural objects at Kabul airport just as the objects were about to depart for Istanbul in Turkey.

At Madrid’s main Barajas airport, Spanish and Colombian police recovered rare and ancient artefacts that had been looted in Colombia, including a unique, 2,000-year-old Tumaco gold mask, coins and figurines.

Three traffickers were arrested and searches in Bogota led to the discovery of another 242 stolen objects, the biggest seizure in Colombia’s history.

Catherine de Bolle, Europol’s executive director, said: “Organised crime has many faces. The trafficking of cultural goods is one of them. It is not a glamorous business run by flamboyant gentlemen forgers, but by international criminal networks.

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