Australian police have returned a rare 1813 Holey Dollar coin stolen from a Polish museum, after it surfaced in the hands of a collector in Perth.
The coin, taken from a museum in Toruń between 2011 and 2018, had been the subject of an international search by Polish authorities, the Australian Federal Police (AFP) said on Monday.
After initially being exported to Germany, the coin appeared in two auctions before being sold in Melbourne. A Perth-based collector later purchased it for 525,000 Australian dollars (329,400 U.S. dollars), unaware of its stolen status.
The collector voluntarily surrendered the coin to police, and it was officially handed back to Polish government representatives in a ceremony.
AFP Commander Renee Colley described the return as a milestone in Australian-Polish law enforcement cooperation.
“This is the first object for which the Australian Government has received a restitution request from Poland
