Arrest of a Theft Gang and the Refinement of a Rare Ancient Bracelet from the Era of "King Amenemhat" at the Egyptian Museum

The Egyptian security forces succeeded in uncovering the mystery of the disappearance of a rare ancient gold bracelet from the Egyptian Museum in Tahrir, and arrested all those involved in a criminal network that starts from inside the museum itself and ends with the melting of the precious piece.

The incident came after both the "museum curator and restoration specialist at the museum" filed a report with the authorities about the disappearance of "a rare gold bracelet dating back to the late period from inside a safe in the restoration lab inside the museum".

The Ministry of Interior disclosed in a statement today, Thursday, that investigations revealed that the perpetrator of the incident is the "restoration specialist at the Egyptian Museum, who managed to steal the bracelet on September 9 while she was at work in the museum using a deception method".

According to the statement, the accused "contacted one of her acquaintances, who is a silver shop owner in the Sayyida Zainab area in Cairo, who sold it to a gold workshop owner for an amount of '180,000 Egyptian pounds' (about 3,730 US dollars)".

The statement added that "the workshop owner in turn sold the bracelet to a worker at the gold foundry for an amount of '194,000 pounds' (about 4,027 US dollars), where he melted it along with other pieces to reshape it", which means the complete destruction of this unique archaeological piece.

After legal procedures were taken, the mentioned individuals were arrested, and upon confrontation, they confessed to committing the incident, and the amounts of money resulting from the sale of the archaeological bracelet were seized in their possession.

It is noteworthy that the disappearance of the bracelet has "sparked widespread controversy in Egyptian cultural circles, and the incident has flooded social media", prompting the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities to announce last Tuesday the "referral of the incident of the disappearance of one of the archaeological bracelets from the Egyptian Museum in Tahrir to various police authorities and the public prosecution, and notifying all concerned parties to take the necessary actions in this regard".

The ministry had formed "a specialized committee to inventory and review all the artifacts present in the restoration lab at the museum, in addition to circulating a photo of the missing piece to all archaeological units at Egyptian airports and land, sea, and border ports across the country as a precautionary measure".

The stolen bracelet, according to the General Director of the Egyptian Museum in Tahrir, was a piece of great historical value, as it is "a gold piece with a spherical lapis lazuli bead from the possessions of 'King Amenemhat' from the Third Intermediate Period".