Pictured: “Apulian Plate”

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin L. Bragg, Jr., today announced the return of 19 antiquities collectively valued at nearly $19 million to the people of Italy. The pieces were seized pursuant to several ongoing investigations against major antiquities traffickers, including Giovanni Franco Becchina, Eugene Alexander, Raffaele Monticelli, Jerome Eisenberg and Edoardo Almagià. The pieces were returned during a repatriation ceremony at the Italian Consulate with Minister of Culture Gennaro Sangiuliano, Ambassador to Italy Mariangela Zappia, New York Consul General Fabrizio Di Michele, and Special Agent in Charge at Homeland Security Investigations, New York Ivan J. Arvelo.

“Italy has been an epicenter of organized antiquities looting for decades, but we continue to undo the damage thanks to our incredible team of investigators, analysts, and prosecutors. 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 objects back to the people of Italy” said District Attorney Bragg.

Minister of Culture of Italy, Gennaro Sangiuliano said: “I wish to thank Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, his Office and Homeland Security Investigations for their effective cooperation with Italian Carabinieri, a gold standard in the international fight against illicit trafficking of cultural goods. Together, in the last twelve months, they have traced and recovered hundreds of looted or stolen Italian antiquities and returned them to the communities they belong.  Cultural heritage is the soul of a Nation. We are grateful to American authorities for their support in our efforts to bring illicitly traded Italian art back home.”

“These 19 artifacts date back as far as 6th century B.C.E., and each tells a story we could expect to read about in books. From a Corinthian helmet to a statue of Aphrodite, the goddess of love and beauty, we are honored to have had a hand in giving these stories their happy endings,” said Ivan J. Arvelo, Special Agent in Charge of Homeland Security Investigations, New York. “HSI New York is proud to be able to reunite our Italian partners with a small piece of their rich heritage.”

The traffickers subject to the Office’s ongoing investigations led highly lucrative criminal enterprises – often in competition with one another – where they would use local looters to raid archaeological sites throughout Italy, usually in the middle of the night. After being looted, the traffickers would arrange for the pieces to be cleaned, restored, and supplied with false provenance, before offering them for sale at auction houses and galleries around the world, often using Robin Symes as their intermediary.

Key pieces being returned today include:

• Gilded Bronze Plaque with Maenad & Tambourine, a gilded plaque which dates to between the 1^st-2^nd Century C.E. Standing at two and a half feet tall it features a maenad – a devotee of the Greek god Dionysus – playing a tambourine in a scene of religious frenzy. This Plaque was smuggled out of Italy by antiquities trafficker Eugene Alexander and into New York through the dealer Michael Ward, who was convicted this past September of Criminal Facilitation.
• Apulian Plate dating to 350 B.C.E., comes from Apulia in southern Italy and features the winged-god, Eros. Before it was recovered by the ATU, the plate was smuggled out of Italy by the notorious antiquities trafficker, Giovanni Franco Becchina. From Becchina, the plate eventually passed to Jerome Eisenberg. Prior to his death, Eisenberg acted as the director of Royal-Athena Galleries. Since 2017, DANY has recovered a total of 125 looted antiquities from Eisenberg and Royal-Athena Galleries.
• Corinthian Bronze Helmet, crafted in the 6th Century C.E., is distinctive, not only for its style, Corinthian, but also for its green color, or patina. Before it was recovered by the ATU, the Corinthian Bronze Helmet was smuggled out of Italy by the prolific antiquities trafficker Raffaele Monticelli.

Pictured: “Gilded Bronze Plaque”

During District Attorney Bragg’s tenure, the ATU has recovered and returned more than 1,000 antiquities stolen from 27 countries and valued at over $215 million. Since its creation, the ATU has recovered over 4,600 antiquities stolen from 30 countries and valued at over $440 million. and returned more than 2,500 antiquities, with more than 1,600 scheduled to be returned in the coming months.

Assistant District Attorney Matthew Bogdanos, Chief of the Antiquities Trafficking Unit and Senior Trial Counsel, supervised the investigations, with assistance from Assistant District Attorneys Yuval Simchi-Levi and James Edwards-Lebair; Supervising Investigative Analyst Apsara Iyer, Investigative Analysts Giuditta Giardini, Alyssa Thiel, Daniel Healey and Mallory O’Donoghue; and Special Agents Robert Mancene, John Paul Labbat, Megan Buckley, and Robert Fromkin of Homeland Security Investigations. Investigative support was provided by Italian Carabinieri Officer Angelo Ragusa.

###

[1] The charges referenced within are merely allegations, and the individuals are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty. All factual recitations are derived from documents filed in court and statements made on the record in court.