news
Also in this section:
Panama News Briefs
More museum
heist arrests, but alleged ringleader gets bail
  
 
More museum theft charges, but alleged mastermind
gets bail
by Eric
Jackson, from reports in other media
Despite a series of raids and more arrests that have
gone higher up the chain of command at the National Institute of
Culture (INAC), none of the 292 golden pre-Columbian huacas
stolen from the Reina Torres de Araúz Museum of
Anthropology sometime between February 14 and 16 have been
recovered.
Meanwhile,
Circuit Judge Felipe Fuentes has ordered museum guide
Adrián Cedeño, whom police and prosecutors believe
was the mastermind of the theft, released on bail if he can post
a $500,000 bond. According to reports in La Prensa and El Panama
America, Cedeño was caught trying to negotiate the sale
of the stolen artifacts for $1.5 million, and a witness says
that the museum guide talked about his plans to loot the museum
before the theft took place. Judge Fuentes agreed to
Cedeño's release despite the fact that the suspect was
already out on bail, appealing a three-year prison sentence for
a different theft. That conviction is part of an extensive
criminal record.
So why was
Cedeño hired by INAC to work around the nation's
priceless treasures? Television reports have it that nobody at
the institute ever checked his police record, while some of the
daily newspapers note that he's from a strongly Arnulfista
family, which includes an alternate legislator.
Prosecutors say
they will appeal Judge Fuentes's decision to grant bail to
Cedeño.
Meanwhile museum
director Acela Rodríguez, along with every other person
at the museum who had access to the keys to the display cases
from which the artifacts were taken, or who had the combination
to the locks to the doors to the showroom where the golden
artifacts were kept, has been arrested. No one person was
supposed to have both the codes and the keys.
A museum
maintenance worker was arrested when his fingerprints were found
at the scene of the crime. Other employees in the museum's
administration and the INAC general secretariat have been
detained, along with three alleged buyers of the stolen huacas,
after having been named by alleged witnesses, one of whom is
reportedly is a detained INAC worker who is exchanging
information for leniency.
According to
reports in various media, the stolen antiquities were driven
away from the museum in an INAC car. INAC has not published
photos of the stolen items in Panama, but INTERPOL has been
provided with such pictures to help locate them abroad.
The Judicial
Technical Police (PTJ) have meanwhile been raiding suspects that
they believe might be likely buyers of or fences for the stolen
huacas. On February 28 the PTJ swooped down on Envases Modernos
in the Panama City neighborhood of Los Angeles and found an
illegal collection of some 300 pre-Columbian ceramic pieces,
some of them more than 2,000 years old. Also recovered in the
raid were eight gold huacas --- none of them taken in the museum
robbery --- and several assault rifles. The owner of the
business, José Porta, was out of the country when the
raid took place.
As this issue
was being uploaded nine people were held in connection with the
museum theft. Cedeño's eight alleged accomplices remained
in jail without bail, while Cedeño's release wa being
held up pending appeal. Although everyone is accused of
aggravated theft, some of the detained INAC employees may end up
facing lesser charges of neglecting their official
duties.
News | Business | Editorial | Opinion | Letters | Arts | Review
Community | Fun | Travel | Outdoors | Dining | Science | Sports
Español | Galleries | Calendar | Archives
Also in this section:
Panama News Briefs
More
museum heist arrests, but alleged ringleader gets bail
|
|
|
