Tour guide noticed the tourist pocketing stones.
A 51-year-old Scottish tourist has been charged with aggravated theft after stealing six pieces of stone during a tour of Pompeii archaeological park in Italy.
The incident occurred on Wednesday evening after a tour guide noticed the visitor pocketing several pieces of pavement from the streets of the ancient city which was buried under volcanic ash and pumice from the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD.
The guide immediately alerted park management and security guards, providing a description of the tourist who had placed the stones in his backpack.
Security staff in turn informed the Carabinieri police who quickly tracked down the tourist outside the archaeological site, near the Viila dei Misteri railway station.
Pompei: sequestrate pietre nascoste nello zaino da un turista https://t.co/V4c65Z3OLT pic.twitter.com/ycZl7q7R4g
— Pompeii Sites (@pompeii_sites) August 14, 2025
Inside the man’s bag were the illicit souvenirs: five pieces of stone and a fragment of brick stolen from Pompeii.
The items were subsequently returned to park authorities who hailed the “team effort” in preventing the tourist from getting away.
“Congratulations and thanks to the attentive tour guide, to our excellent custodians and security staff, and to the Carabinieri for this collaborative effort to protect our heritage,” the director of the archaeological park, Gabriel Zuchtriegel, said in a statement.
Guilt-ridden tourists
Over the years numerous tourists have stolen artefacts from Pompeii, with some returning them, often many years later.
Although most tourists do so out of guilt, others do so for superstitious reasons.
In 2020 a Canadian tourist returned artefacts stolen from Pompeii 15 years earlier, to “shake off the curse that has fallen on me and my family.”
Pompeii even has a special display area to exhibit returned artefacts alongside remorse-laden letters, such as one from a Spanish tourist who had stolen a piece of decorated plaster that became “a harbinger of family misadventures and misfortunes.”
Photo Pompeii Sites X
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