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.
The deal was abandoned only after Bulgarian police warned the museum that the coin was a fake.