The Ministry of Public Security (MPS) in China announced that they had retrieved more than 37,000 cultural-relic items in 2022, which were being held illegally. According to The Xinhua News Agency, this is part of the government’s annual crackdown on cultural relic-related crimes, which has been ongoing for six years.
The MPS stated that among the items recovered were over 3,800 valuable cultural relics, which are classified under the Law on Protection of Cultural Relics. Furthermore, they revealed that over 1,700 criminal cases linked to cultural relics were solved during the year, and more than 310 criminal gangs were apprehended.
The crackdown campaigns aim to prevent criminal acts such as illicit excavations of sites of ancient culture and tombs, thefts of stone carvings or architectural components from cave temples and other structures. The MPS and the National Cultural Heritage Administration plan to extend these efforts until 2025, with stronger measures against such crimes.
