At the state justice of New York (UNITED STATES) has been carrying out for more than two years a vast campaign of restitution of antiquities looted in about twenty countries, and which landed in museums and galleries of the megalopolis, including the prestigious Metropolitan Museum of Art.
In this context, 14 works of art stolen, some dating from Roman and Greek antiquity, were returned to Italy on Thursday in a ceremony with Italian Consul General Fabrizio Di Michele and the Italian Carabinieri.
Works stolen by “tomb robbers”
These works, worth 2.5 million dollars, are part of a batch of 214 pieces returned to Rome in the last seven months. Among the works are a silver Tetradrachm coin from Naxos in Sicily dating from 430 BC and a marble head of Emperor Hadrian from 200 AD.
According to a statement from Manhattan Borough Attorney Alvin Bragg, the 14 works were stolen and trafficked by notorious Italian art traffickers Giacomo Medici and Giovanni Franco Becchina, as well as Parisian art dealer Robert Hecht, who died in 2012.
These men “counted on gangs of grave robbers to steal from archaeological sites, chosen because they were poorly protected, around the Mediterranean”, denounced the New York justice.
New York, hub of antiquities trafficking
New York has been a hub for decades of international traffic ofantiques. The Manhattan borough prosecutor’s office has had a unit dedicated to this problem since 2017.
The most emblematic case of art traffickers is that of collector Michael Steinhardt, who in 2021 had to return around 180 stolen antiques, worth 70 million dollars. An amicable agreement allowed him to escape an indictment, but prohibits him for life from acquiring works on the legal art market.
In total, more than 700 coins worth more than $100 million have been returned over the past year to 17 countries, including Cambodia, India, Pakistan, Egypt, Iraq, Greece or Italy.
