Greek police recover Aphrodite stolen from island museum

ATHENS, Greece — A 2,000-year-old statue of the ancient Greek goddess of love Aphrodite, one of a batch of antiquities stolen from a museum storeroom on the resort island of Santorini, has been recovered from traffickers in a car trunk, Greek police said Wednesday.

The 80-centimetre (31-inch) marble work was found Tuesday, together with two more ancient stone artefacts believed to have been illegally excavated, in a car stopped in a parking lot in the southern seaside town of Loutraki.

Police arrested a 46-year-old Greek man in the car, who was allegedly seeking to sell the three pieces for a total €350,000 ($400,000). Another two Greek men have been identified as suspected accomplices, a police statement said, adding that the crackdown followed a tipoff.

According to Wednesday’s statement, the director of the Santorini museum confirmed that the Aphrodite statue, which dates to the 2nd or 1st centuries B.C., was stolen from the storeroom.