The Dateline current affairs program of the Australian SBS TV has released a documentary on treasure hunting in Bulgaria.

"Plundering the Past" is a film of Australian journalist David O'Shea demonstrating how treasure hunters pray on Bulgaria's archaeological heritage. (You can watch the film HERE.) The film aired in Australia Sunday night, September 13, 2009.

Ivan Dikov, the Editor-in-Chief of Novinite.com (Sofia News Agency), was also involved in the project of David O'Shea by serving as a fixer and translator. You can read Ivan Dikov's interview with David O'Shea HERE, and Ivan Dikov's feature article on treasure hunting and archaeology in Bulgaria HERE.

"Plundering the Past" focuses on the ancient Roman town of Ratiaria located on the Danube River in northeast Bulgaria, which was one of the six arsenal towns in the Roman Empire during the height of its power under Emperor Trajan (98 AD - 117 AD).

While it was fully preserved until the late 1980s, Ratiaria was totally destroyed by treasure hunters after 1989, i.e. in the past two decades, who would use all sorts of means in their search for treasures, artifacts, statues, etc that they can then sell up the organized crime chain. (More details about Ratiaria are available HERE.)

The Dateline documentary also shows an incident in which the team is attacked while trying to talk to a group of treasure hunters that they surprised on the spot at Ratiaria.

While it focuses on Ratiaria as a case in hand, O'Shea's film demonstrates how grave of an issue treasure hunting is in Bulgaria as a major organized crime activity.

The people who appear in the documentary are Bulgarian archaeologists Ventsislav Gergov, Georgi Ganetsovski, and Diana Gergova; head of the unit for combating trafficking of cultural heritage items at the Bulgarian police, Volodya Velkov; Todor Chobanov - lawyer prosecuting cases of treasure hunting and trafficking who became Bulgaria's Deputy Minister of Culture in the GERB government just two months after the movie was shot in June 2009; Petar Dimitrov, a collector; anonymous treasure hunters.

You can watch "Plundering the Past" HERE