Among the artifacts, many of which had been exhibited for years at the city’s Metropolitan Museum of Artwork, was “The Marble Head of Athena”, approximated at $ 3 million.
“We are privileged to be equipped to return it right now,” mentioned Colonel Matthew Bogdanos, head of the Antiques Trade Device of the Manhattan Attorney’s Place of work, promising “many more repurchases and several extra repatriations” during the rest of the yr. .
Between the returned things were also a glass termed “White-Floor Kylix”, “Bronze Bust of a Male” and vases, bowls and other cooking utensils. Some arrived from the assortment of billionaire hedge fund manager Michael Steinhardt.
The antiquities were bought by convicted looters, together with Giacomo Medici and Giovanni Franco Becchina, who made use of regional inhabitants to loot unguarded places in Italy, the Manhattan prosecutor’s workplace mentioned.
The parts are “component of our earlier, of our ancestors,” Italian police normal Roberto Riccardi claimed throughout the ceremony. “And they belong to the local community. They will return to the group to which they belong and to generations to appear.”
Given that the early 2010s, the Bogdanos Antiquities Company has seized 4,500 pieces worthy of far more than $ 250 million, he said.
Bogdanos attributes the achievement to unprecedented collaboration.
“It can be taking place now because … the Manhattan District Attorney’s Business designed the Antiques Trafficking Unit, the only 1 of its variety in the environment in which prosecutors, investigators and analysts are all element of the identical team.” .
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