It is not unusual that artefacts, valuable treasures in a cultural heritage fall victim of unlawful deeds, they are stolen, smuggled out of the country or even abducted. It can happen in national museums, village museums even private collections, too. According to date provided by KÖH, stealing works of art may occur 700-800 times in Hungary on a yearly basis, with damage accounting to one-billion HFt. Statistics reveal that the number of cases lessens; on the other hand, the value of loss grows due to the ever increasing professionalism of the perpetrators. In addition to burglary, smuggling of works of art causes considerable problems. The extent of this is shown by the fact that criminal act in relations to works of art is third in line after drug and arms trade by organized crime.

The main objective of the exhibition is to show works of art and archaeological finds through which the successful work of the police and Hungarian Financial and Tax Administration to protect cultural values is done. Most of the items on display were seized by the police and returned to their original owners. Naturally, it is impossible to show all the art related items the were concerned in police investigations, were successfully recovered.

The exhibition, however, directs attention to the importance of preserving cultural heritage and to what we the owners can do to have our artefacts safe.

The golden finds from the Hun Era, from the 5th century, is one of the outstanding items on display. The jewellery ornamented find is owned by the Museum of Fine Arts, it is valuated over 50 million forints. The total value of objects that were stolen from the Mikszáth Kálmán Memorial House in the fall of 2006 is also over 50 million Ft. The perpetrators stole protected artefacts, including several of the personal belongings of the novelist with the total value of 12 million Ft, the painting em>Apple Trees in Bloom by Merse Szinyei Pál, which is part of our display this time.

The first section of the exhibition includes archaeological finds, stone carvings, statues, paintings whereas in other sections we mostly show sacred objects, such as a great number of icons, tablets, books and statues. Most of these are from the Saint Nicholas Church of Eger that was looted in 2009. The total value of the items the burglers took was ten-millions of Ft.

We also have to mention the public statues that are under special theatre both by weather and human forces. Most of the felonies against these works of art are for the sake of financial gain. The reconstruction of these is very costly, often impossible. We remember the story of reconstruction of damaged public statues through photos.