Mafia strikes gold in Crimea

An illegal trade in artefacts from ancient burial mounds is booming on Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula, with valuable items reportedly making their way to auction houses in the West.

According to a special report by Russian Public TV, archeologists searching for treasures in an area that was at the heart of the pre-Christian Scythian empire are regularly shadowed by the mafia's own well-trained and often dangerous prospectors.

Archeologists flock to the Crimea each summer

They come in search of gold and other treasures

Sevastopol is a centre for the illegal antique trade

Illegal prospectors work with metal detectors

Some archeologists have taken up arms for protection

Police recover hundreds of looted items each year

The racket is valued at millions of dollars

But artefact smugglers face at most 18 months in jail

BBC Monitoring, based in Caversham in southern England, selects and translates information from radio, television, press, news agencies and the Internet from 150 countries in more than 70 languages.