I. Evidența tezaurelor de brățări regale dacice furate din situl UNESCO Sarmizegetusa Regia și recuperate din traficul ilicit cu bunuri culturale. Operațiunea judiciară „Aurul dacic”
I. Evidence of the hoards of Dacian royal bracelets stolen from the UNESCO site of Sarmizegetusa Regia and recovered from the illicit trafficking of cultural goods. "Dacian Gold" judicial operation

Summary/Abstract: The paper briefly presents the jurisprudence that has established the recovery of the Dacian gold bracelets, identified with no. 1-14 and stolen from the UNESCO site of Sarmizegetusa Regia, and successively presents the lots of repatriated artifacts, belonging to the stolen Dacian treasures (currently classified in the category of treasure of the national cultural heritage). It reveals the focus on the recovery of the goods; the legal instruments applicable for recovery: amicable, civil agreements, concluded with the bona fide possessors (fair compensation: the price paid and the costs of restitution, accordin to art. 4 of the UNIDROIT Convention, 1995), Directive 2014/60/EU of 15 May 2014 on the return of cultural goods illegally removed from the territory of a Member State, as well as the instruments of international judicial cooperation (national criminal legislation, the asset freezing order and the European investigation order). The "key" authentication tools were the expert reports that used new digital technologies. The expert reports highlight the emblematic characteristics of the recovered pieces: style and processing technique, weight, composition, market value and insurance for situations of theft or destruction, the connection with the context of origin. The paper also reveals the identified fraudulent mechanisms of laundering/recycling artifacts in order to hide or disguise their criminal origin: presenting artifacts originating in a wider cultural area, as the property of honorable, deceased persons (teachers, aristocrats etc.), as pieces from legitimate collections, guarantees in civil conventions etc. The defendants also concealed the illicit provenance of the pieces by making false customs declarations regarding the origin (e.g., stating that the bracelet had been legally introduced into the US from Albania). Data obtained from eBay Inc. indicated the association of the defendants' email addresses with anonymous accounts (for example, the "domprofesor" account, created on the website www.ebay.com, through which he recycles stolen artifacts, as an e-bay member, an anonymous dealer with an honorable appearance).

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