Ancient coins, pendants, brooches, statues and spearheads are among the artefacts returned to the people of Bulgaria after they were discovered at Dover.
Estimated to be worth £76,110, the looted national assets were found hidden inside a lorry full of trousers at the Port of Dover in October.
The driver, Dimitar Dimitrov, 41, was working as a courier on behalf of a Bulgarian organised crime group and was jailed for two years in March after admitting transferring criminal property.
The investigation was led by Kent Police detectives with assistance from the Metropolitan Police Service’s specialist Art and Antiquities Unit and the Bulgarian authorities.
DI 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 they were stolen from.
More items seized during separate investigations carried out by the Metropolitan Police Service were also returned.
DI Creed…
