In 1995, an unique Thracian burial mound near the village of Rosino was totally destroyed. In 1985, Bulgaria's old communist regime reacted to the criminalization of treasure-hunting by creating a special department within the framework of the State Security apparatus. Yet, according to the same source, this number is believed to be only 30 percent of what has been lost. That means that perhaps some 70,000 artifacts have been lost. Many objects end up in auction houses in the West, where they are restored and sold at twice or three times the contraband price.
Buyers are mostly collectors from Austria, Germany and Belgium.
Plundering newly discovered sites is not the only way that criminals in Bulgaria seek to get rich from antiquities. Another is theft from museums. Artifacts have been stolen from a museum near Ivailovgrad and from one in Plovdiv. A third way criminals earn money is through forging old coins, statues and plates. Experts say that expert forgers can be found in Bulgaria.