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Athens (dpa) - Greek police have uncovered a cache of ancient Greek and Roman artifacts of "countless and priceless value" on the small island of Schoinoussa in the Cyclades, Greek media reported Sunday.
Police believe the cache belongs to a group of illicit antiques and art smugglers.
All of the articles were discovered in a remote villa that belongs to a Panama-based offshore company. The villa is occupied in the summer by a Greek shipping family that is permanently based in London, the reports said.
The media published photos from Schoinoussa in which dozens of sculptures, treasures, vases and amphoras could be seen.
There was also a shot of a Venus statue from Roman antiquity.
The owners of the villa had also built a chapel using parts of antique columns and pieces of marble with inscriptions.
Officials suspect that the objects are the product of illegal excavations around the eastern Mediterranean which were then gradually moved to the remote Cyclades island of Schoinoussa, the population of which is only 150.
Police were also investigating whether the villa was "practically an interim storage point," the Athens-based Eleftherotypia newspaper reported.
Copyright 2006 dpa Deutsche Presse-Agentur GmbH
