More than 1,000 Copiapoa cacti sat on Piombetti's veranda and in another locked room that he initially told police he'd lost the key for, together with other rare cacti. "It was by chance," says ...

Copiapoa cacti last made headlines in 2020 when more than 1,000 illegally harvested copiapoa and eriosyce cacti were discovered in Italy as a part of a law enforcement action called Operation Atacama.

During the first cactus confiscation raid, in February 2020, officials found hundreds of Copiapoa and Eriosyce cactuses in Senigallia, Italy, a port town on the coast of the Adriatic Sea.Nine ...