US returns 19 antique properties worth $19 million to Italy

Important return toItaly by the United States of 19 antiquities worth a total of nearly $19 million, seized as part of several ongoing investigations against prominent antiquities traffickers, including Giovanni Franco Becchina, Eugene Alexander, Raffaele Monticelli, Jerome Eisenberg and Edoardo Almagià. The items were returned during a ceremony, presided over by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin L. Bragg, held at the Italian Consulate in the presence of Minister of Culture Gennaro Sangiuliano, Ambassador Mariangela Zappia, New York Consul General Fabrizio Di Michele and Special Agent in Charge of New York Homeland Security Investigations Ivan J. Arvelo.

The traffickers targeted by the bureau’s ongoing investigation conducted highly profitable, often competing criminal activities in which they used local looters to raid archaeological sites throughout Italy, usually in the middle of the night. After the pieces were stolen, the traffickers would clean, restore and supply the pieces with false provenance before offering them for sale in auction houses and galleries around the world. Among the objects returning to Italy are a gilded bronze plaque with maenads (a gilded plaque dated between the 1st and 2nd centuries AD that features a maenad in the act of playing a tambourine in a scene of religious frenzy), an Apulian dish from 350 BC (pictured), depicting the god Eros, and then again a Corinthian bronze helmet, made in the 6th century AD, Assistant District Attorney Matthew Bogdanos, head of the Antiquities Trafficking Unit and senior counsel, supervised the investigation, with assistance from assistant district attorneys Yuval Simchi-Levi and James Edwards-Lebair, supervising investigative analyst Apsara Iyer, investigative analysts Juditta Giardini, Alyssa Thiel, Daniel Healey and Mallory O’Donoghue, and special agents Robert Mancene, John Paul Labbat, Megan Buckley and Robert Fromkin. Investigative support was provided by Carabinieri officer Angelo Ragusa.

“Italy has been the epicenter of organized looting of antiquities for decades, but we continue to repair the damage thanks to our incredible team of investigators, analysts and prosecutors,” said District Attorney Bragg. “I thank the Italian government for its continued extraordinary cooperation and our colleagues at HSI for their partnership. During my tenure, I am proud to have returned more than 275 items to the people of Italy.”

“I would like to thank Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, his office, and Homeland Security Investigations for their effective cooperation with the Carabinieri, a landmark in the international fight against the illicit trafficking of cultural property,” said Minister Sangiuliano. “Together, in the past 12 months, they have tracked down and recovered hundreds of looted or stolen Italian antiquities and returned them to their communities. Cultural heritage is the soul of the nation. I thank the U.S. authorities for their excellent cooperation in combating the illicit trafficking of cultural property. There are more than 400 works of art that we have repatriated from the United States since I took office.”

“These 19 artifacts date back to the 6th century B.C. and each one tells a story we might expect to read about in books,” said Special Agent Arvelo. “From a Corinthian helmet to a statue of Aphrodite, the goddess of love and beauty, we are honored to have helped give these stories their happy endings.”

US returns 19 antique properties worth $19 million to Italy

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