Mohn is charged with gross forgery and breach of the Cultural Heritage Act after the police seized the expensive coin from the Roman era. This is revealed by a recent ruling from the Oslo district court. The coin was for sale on an auction site, but the sale was stopped when France discovered it. – French authorities believe this coin originates from a shipwreck and that the coin should never have been taken out of France, because it is the property of the French state, says police attorney Andreas Meeg Bentzen to news. Facsimile: Oslo coin gallery Emperor Quintillus In the year 270, Quintillus ruled the Roman Empire. His reign lasted only two months, but gold coins, so-called “aurei” with inscriptions of the emperor’s name and image, were produced. The Quintillus coins are very expensive and rare, and when one of these coins appeared on a Norwegian auction site earlier this year, the French authorities were alarmed. On the auction site, the coin is described as “extremely rare” and one of very few known examples. The starting bid was NOK 300,000, but the value of the coin should, according to news, be closer to NOK 1.5 million. France sent a request to Økokrim in Norway where they claimed that the coin is their state property and that it belongs to them. – It is obvious that the French authorities had an overview of which coins were for sale at the relevant auction and then chose to contact the Norwegian police and ask us for help to ensure that this coin was not sold, says Meeg Bentzen. A short time later, the coin was withdrawn from the market. When the police opened an investigation, they found out that the auction house sold the coin on behalf of the billionaire Trond Mohn. He is now charged in the case. – The charge is a violation of the Cultural Heritage Act or theft, so we believe that selling this coin is associated with punishment, says Bentzen. The Oslo District Court writes in a ruling that there is no evidence that Mohn knew he was doing something illegal when he put the coin up for sale. The court points out that he has bought it in good faith from a professional seller, and that it has been traded in the past. – Delete police work Mohn himself believes the charge is baseless and says he bought the coin through the Oslo coin gallery. – That gold coin was at one time seized by the German authorities and was released at the end of the 90s. If the French authorities had contacted the German authorities, they would have understood that the coin is free, he says to news. The ruling states that Mohn has not responded to any of the police and the court’s inquiries. – For the undersigned, this is a non-issue, and therefore I refrained from meeting in Oslo. I think it’s just police work. He is completely incomprehensible to France’s demand to get the coin back. – They think they have ownership of it, and they don’t, because the case has been so thoroughly investigated by the German police. But what the German and French police are communicating, I am not the right person to answer. But if it turns out that the coin is actually French, Mohn is clear about what he wants to do. Mohn is clear that he will give the coin back if they can prove that it is their property. – Of course I want to give it back. Photo: Natural History Museum, UiO France is on the hunt The ruling states that the French authorities believe that Mohn’s gold coin was bought illegally after a shipwreck in Corsica. – It is often in the sea that you find spectacular discoveries in sunken ships. Sometimes it ends up in the wrong hands and is spread on the market, says professor of archeology Håkon Roland. He is responsible for the coin, which is now kept at the Museum of Cultural History. – For many years, the French authorities have been looking for coins that could come from this wreck. It’s nice that we can map this out and get it where it belongs, he says. The coin stated to belong to France, […] was stated to originate from a private discovery of a shipwreck off Corsica. According to the information, the find was not disclosed to the French authorities in line with current legislation, but was instead sold on the collectors’ market by the finders, the ruling states. Photo: Museum of Natural History, UiO French law states that treasures and antiquities found on the seabed belong to the French state. – We are waiting for the French authorities to verify the coin as the coin they are looking for. Then it will be able to be returned to the French state, says Meeg Bentzen. Seized The Oslo Police District seized the coin and placed it at the Cultural History Museum. The auction company Oslo myntgalleri, which was supposed to pass on the sale, objected to the seizure, and wanted the coin back. Photo: Jonas Been Henriksen / news The police wanted to maintain the seizure, but on Wednesday this week the Oslo district court decided to lift the seizure. The prosecution has appealed the ruling. news has been in contact with the chairman of the Oslo coin gallery, Arne Riise, who does not want to comment on the case while it is ongoing. The lava treasure French authorities believe the coin that Mohn is trying to sell originates from the so-called “Lava treasure” off the coast of Ajaccio in Corsica. Here, a ship loaded with large quantities of Roman gold is said to have sunk to the bottom of the sea. No shipwrecks have ever been found, but historians and archaeologists believe the treasure consisted of up to 1,400 coins. Some coins from the “Lava Treasure” appeared in the 1950s, but it was not until 1985 that large quantities of gold were found. Three men who were out diving for sea urchins then discovered the treasure on the seabed. One of these was Felix Biancamaria. In the book Le Trésor de Lava (The Lava Treasure), Biancamaria writes that they found between 450 and 500 gold coins. They must have melted down 40 of these. In 1994, Biancamaria was sentenced to pay a fine of 15,000 euros and to 18 months’ probation. In 2010, the Corsican man was stopped at Paris airport with a valuable gold plate in his luggage. The gold came from the same treasure, and was valued at somewhere between NOK 6.8 and 9.1 million. Biancamaria has claimed that this gold plate was found on land, and that it therefore does not automatically belong to the authorities, writes The Guardian. Published 05.07.2024, at 16.28 Updated 05.07.2024, at 16.42
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Billionaire Trond Mohn charged with forgery of historic gold coin – news Norway – Overview of news from different parts of the country
