Europe 1 with AFP // Photo credits: Magali Cohen / Hans Lucas / Hans Lucas via AFP 9:50 a.m., January 29, 2024

Nearly forty years after its discovery, the Lava treasure is once again at the heart of a legal case. A new trial opens in Marseille this Monday, against two men who tried to sell a piece from this set of exceptional pieces dating from the Roman Empire.

Buried off the coast of Corsica, the "Lava treasure" is being talked about again, 30 years after a first trial, with the appearance in Marseille on Monday of two men who tried to sell a gold dish from this set of objects of Antiquity. Félix Biancamaria and his childhood friend and alleged accomplice, Jean-Michel Richaud, are being prosecuted before the criminal court for concealment and possession of a maritime cultural property presenting the character of a national treasure, in this case a curved gold dish of 25 cm in diameter estimated at several million euros, for acts committed between January and October 2010.

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Arrest at Roissy TGV station

It was while fishing for sea urchins in 1985 in the Gulf of Lava, 17 kilometers north of Ajaccio, with his brother Ange and a friend, that Félix Biancamaria discovered the first gold pieces of this 3rd century treasure. Already sentenced in 1995 in this affair with his brother Ange to 18 months' suspended imprisonment and a fine for "hijacking a maritime wreck", Félix Biancamaria is now being prosecuted following his arrest at the TGV station in Roissy, from Brussels, in possession of this dish considered to be one of the centerpieces of Lava's treasure.

According to his statements, this dish reappeared in August 2010, via Jean-Michel Richaud who allegedly entrusted it to him, which he disputes. Félix Biancamaria would then have given it to Paul Canarelli, owner of the luxurious Murtoli tourist estate in Corsica, who himself would have given it to potential Belgian buyers who brought this dish back from Corsica to Brussels by private jet. After they had abandoned the purchase, Félix Biancamaria then went to Belgium to recover the object and was arrested on his return to France.

On land or at sea?

His lawyers, Me Amale Kenbib and Anna-Maria Sollacaro, announced during a press conference on January 22 that they were going to plead for their client to be “relaxed” and for “his dish to be returned to him”. Mr Sollacaro considers it "much more likely that this treasure comes from the Roman occupation of the time than from a shipwreck". However, if the treasure was initially on dry land, the person who discovers it is entitled to 50% of its value. But if it is damaged at sea, it belongs entirely to the State.

Originally, the first gold coins bearing the effigies of the Roman emperors Gallienus, Claudius II, Quintille and Aurelian, discovered in the Gulf of Lava, date back to the mid-19th century, already by a coral fisherman. In 1958, an article in the Numismatic Review revealed that a Roman ship loaded with gold coins and precious objects had been shipwreck off the coast of Corsica while en route to North Africa, likely between 266 and 270 The treasure would be made up of a total of "1,200 to 1,500 pieces" of which 450 pieces would have been recovered and sold, in France and abroad, for unit prices of up to 300,000 euros, according to investigators.

An investigation by the Ajaccio gendarmerie, opened in May 1986, gave rise to the 1995 convictions. In total, 78 pieces from the treasure had been seized in this affair, but the gold dish, already mentioned at the time, had not been found. In December 2009, suspicion of resumption of trafficking in elements of the Lava treasure gave rise to the opening of a new investigation and surveillance of the Biancamaria brothers. Beyond the courtrooms, this incredible story inspired “Inestimable”, the latest comedy from Corsican actor-director and screenwriter, Eric Fraticelli, released in theaters on November 1.