Three Plaka jewelers were arrested on Tuesday for selling pieces of jewelry incorporating small ancient coins, police said yesterday. A fourth man was arrested in southern Athens for setting the antiquities into rings, brooches and pendants for sale to tourists.

The string of arrests started in Tavros, where police raided a jewelry workshop at 20 Dimokratias Avenue, finding 417 ancient, small-denomination copper coins from Macedonia, most dating to the fourth and third centuries BC, set into various pieces of jewelry. The workshop owner, Ioannis Filippopolitis, was arrested, while police are seeking his partner, Constantinos Bouras.

Antiquities discovered in Greece belong to the State, and can only be possessed by licensed collectors or traders.

Following the Tavros raid, detectives inspected the premises of several Plaka jewelers, and found a total of 74 coin-adorned jewelry pieces in three shops in the district’s Adrianou Street, one of the capital’s main tourist trails.

Shopowners Panayiotis Levendis, Angelos Tzikas and Georgios Foutsis will be charged with the illegal possession and sale of antiquities.