Italy said it recovered 266 ancient looted artifacts worth tens of millions of euros from the United States, where they had been carried and sold in the 1990s by an international network of artifact smugglers.
The ancient items, which date back to the 9th century BC, include works belonging to the terms of the Etruscan civilization, Magna Graecia and Imperial Rome.
The recovery of the artifacts was due to the cooperation between Italian and US judicial authorities, a specialist unit of Italy’s carabinieri police said in a statement.
Italian culture ministry provided a few pictures that show the artifacts including the head of a statue, some coins, and several painted pots which were pictured at a restitution ceremony earlier this week in New York.
145 ancient pieces were repatriated as part of bankruptcy proceedings against an antiquities dealer, the statement added. It added that 65 artifacts had come from the Menil Collection museum in the US city of Houston.
However, a spokesperson for the museum said it had presented the artifacts as a present but had referred the donor to the Italian Minister of Culture who cautioned the museum that Italy was claiming the objects.
