Police arrested a sheepfold owner in northern Greece after officers found cannabis plants growing beside hundreds of suspected Serres antiquities, from bronze coins and arrowheads to lamps and figurines.
Officers from the Hellenic Police drug squad of the Serres Crime Investigation Sub-directorate made the arrest on Friday, 16 October. The man faces charges under Greece’s drug laws and its laws protecting antiquities and cultural heritage.
Initially, police stopped the man and found two packages of raw cannabis weighing 9.8 grams on him. A search of his sheepfold, in the wider Serres area, followed.
There, officers found seven cannabis plants, between 1.3 and 2 metres tall, growing in pots. They uprooted and seized the plants, along with six packages weighing 86 grams, 1.69 kilograms of cannabis plant material and a precision scale.
Inside the Serres antiquities haul
In the same building, police seized 214 bronze coins, 42 bronze arrowheads and 28 lead sling bullets. Investigators also recovered 21 bronze bracelets plus part of another, 19 lamps and 17 figurines or figurine fragments.
Next on the list came 16 bronze rings, 11 bronze pendants and 10 clay perfume vessels. Eight clay vessels, among them a cup, drinking cups known as skyphoi and a small amphora, as well as 26 other objects, complete the Serres antiquities.
An archaeologist from the Ephorate of Antiquities made a first assessment. In that view, the Serres antiquities fall under the protective provisions of Greece’s antiquities law.
Police seized a further 90 coins, 74 metal objects and 10 silver coins, as well as eight fragments of copper slag and six of silver slag. Those items will now go for further examination.
Cannabis at a second property
Later, a search of a house the man used turned up four more packages of raw cannabis weighing 489.8 grams. Officers also found a second precision scale there.
Following the arrest, police took the man before the Serres public prosecutor. His case then went to an investigating magistrate.
Authorities have not named the suspect or given his age. Nor have they said where the Serres antiquities came from or how long he kept them.
Looting has troubled the region before. In March 2025, the Culture Ministry suspended a night guard at the local ephorate over his alleged role in a looting network.
That same month, police broke up antiquities smuggling rings across northern Greece, arresting 23 suspects.
Source: Kathimerini
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