Suizhou tomb robbers taken down

Thirteen tomb raiders have been arrested and 198 ancient artifacts, some more than 2,000 years old and worth millions of yuan, have been recovered in Suizhou, Hubei Province, the provincial department of public security said over the weekend.

Among the cultural relics, eight are ranked under national standards as grade 1 artifacts, 36 are grade 2 objects and 104 are grade 3.

The 104 pieces grade-three piece alone are estimated to be worth over 100 million yuan ($16 million).

"We've recovered a large number of treasures by eradicating the crime ring that's been stealing cultural relics from ancient tombs," Chang Jun, a press officer from the public security bureau of Suizhou, told the Global Times Monday.

One of the grade 1 pieces, which sold for 1 million yuan and has been since recovered, is a bronze Ding vessel made around 600BC.

The city is renowned for its ancient treasures. A bianzhong, a musical instrument made up of a set of bronze bells from the Warring State period of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty (475BC-221BC) is the largest ever unearthed. It was found in 1978.

Chang Monday told the Global Times the case is still under investigation.

"It helped us net major members of the crime group. Grave robbing has not been fundamentally solved, as every year we handle two or three small cases," Chang added.

Residents living nearby first told local cultural officials in August that they found many holes around the Yidigang group of ancient tombs, just two kilometers from downtown Suizhou.

After noticing the disturbed earth, cigarette butts and discarded mineral water bottles, cultural officials suspected the tomb had been ransacked and reported it to local police.

The police then tracked down a group of people from Shandong Province who stayed at a local hotel during the day and went out at night taking spades and pickaxes. Just as the 12 suspects were making a getaway back to their hometown, the police nabbed them.

Police said the men had been pre-paid 2 million yuan by someone nicknamed "little fat man" in Shandong, who would pay another 2 million yuan later.

Police set up a sting operation with a resident of Wuhan, surnamed Zhang, who had been arrested in September and confiscated 148 pieces of ancient artworks, including 21 pieces stolen from the tombs in Suizhou.

Zhang told police he bought those antiques from "little fat man."

The police then used Zhang and bank records to catch "little fat man," who has been arrested but has yet to be identified.