It took nearly 20 years of dogged detective work and a trail which crossed continents before the case of the missing $1m relic could be closed. That piece of history is a small silver coin rich in symbolism, minted during a Jewish revolt nearly 2,000 years ago.
Looted in Israel in 2002, it was eventually tracked down, seized and is being returned to where it came from. The saga began when the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) learned from informants that the coin had been taken by Palestinians from a hoard unearthed in the Ella Valley, south of Jerusalem.
The IAA says it spent the next decade and a half trying to locate the coin, which passed through illicit antiquities markets in Israel, Jordan and the UK. It was eventually exported to the US for sale at the auction in 2017.
The IAA alerted US Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), which then took administrative custody of the coin. The investigation was passed to the Manhattan District Attorney’s Antiquities Trafficking Unit (ATU), which obtained a court order to repatriate the coin based on information from informants in five countries along with help from authorities in Europe and the Middle East.
Credit: bbc.com
