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CRIME

Italy to crack down on art crime after stolen artefacts recovered in USA

Three ancient artefacts have been returned to Italy by US officials this week after they were traced to an auction house in New York.

Published: 5 November 2018 10:59 CET
Italy to crack down on art crime after stolen artefacts recovered in USA
The badge of the Italian Carabinieri del Comando Tutela Patrimonio Culturale, also known as the 'Art Squad'. Photo: Carabinieri

The clampdown on cultural crimes comes after several high-profile repatriations of Italian art and antiquities taken abroad and recovered only after being put up for auction.

The announcement came as three artefacts recovered in the USA were returned to the Italian government in a repatriation ceremony in Washington DC.

The ancient Greek items – a wine carafe, a decanter for precious oils and a soup tureen – had been illegally dug out of an archaeological site in Italy and smuggled into the US, where they were listed for sale at a New York auction house.

Eagle-eyed Italian Carabinieri officers, from the country’s famous ‘art squad’ or cultural heritage unit, alerted the FBI after spotting auction listings for the items while doing a routine daily check of online auctions.

Artifacts on display during the ceremony at the headquarters of the Italian Embassy in Washington. Photo: Italian Embassy in Washington.

The items were handed back to Italy in a ceremony at the headquarters of the Italian Embassy in Washington, where Italy’s culture minister announced the government would be cracking down on such crimes.

READ ALSO: Italy's 'Art Squad' charges hoarder of rare Roman coins

“We want to introduce laws on specific crimes so there are stiffer penalties applied to crimes against cultural heritage, which is a fundamental part of our identity,” said the Culture Minister Alberto Bonisoli.

Along with the government’s new draft law, he said Italy would soon be ratifying the Nicosia convention, an international agreement establishing penalties for offences such as unlawful excavation, importation and exportation, illegal acquisition and sale of cultural artefacts.

The ceremony marked more than 15 years of collaboration between Italy and the US in the fight against the illegal trafficking of stolen artefacts. 

Art crime is a huge problem in Italy, where artworks are stolen from unguarded churches and even from secure museums, and illegal excavations can uncover valuable historical treasures.

Over one million artworks are currently listed as missing or stolen.

Italy became the first country in the world to create a specialized police force to combat cultural crimes back in 1969.

The three items were the latest of 16 precious art and archaeological artifacts recovered in the US and returned to Italy over the last two years.

Last month, the London Metropolitan police also returned two Etruscan treasures stolen from Italy.

The return and protection of Italian cultural items has been a stated aim of the country’s populist government made up of the Five Star Movement (5SM), of which Bonisoli is a member, and the League.

READ ALSO: Built by Caligula and smuggled to the US, a long-lost Roman mosaic finally returns to Italy

EUROPEAN UNION

Italian PM Meloni to stand in EU Parliament elections

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said on Sunday she would stand in upcoming European Parliament elections, a move apparently calculated to boost her far-right party, although she would be forced to resign immediately.

Published: 28 April 2024 15:54 CEST
Italian PM Meloni to stand in EU Parliament elections

Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party, which has neo-Fascist roots, came top in Italy’s 2022 general election with 26 percent of the vote.

It is polling at similar levels ahead of the European elections on from June 6-9.

With Meloni heading the list of candidates, Brothers of Italy could exploit its national popularity at the EU level, even though EU rules require that any winner already holding a ministerial position must immediately resign from the EU assembly.

“We want to do in Europe exactly what we did in Italy on September 25, 2022 — creating a majority that brings together the forces of the right to finally send the left into opposition, even in Europe!” Meloni told a party event in the Adriatic city of Pescara.

In a fiery, sweeping speech touching briefly on issues from surrogacy and Ramadan to artificial meat, Meloni extolled her coalition government’s one-and-a-half years in power and what she said were its efforts to combat illegal immigration, protect families and defend Christian values.

After speaking for over an hour in the combative tone reminiscent of her election campaigns, Meloni said she had decided to run for a seat in the European Parliament.

READ ALSO: How much control does Giorgia Meloni’s government have over Italian media?

“I’m doing it because I want to ask Italians if they are satisfied with the work we are doing in Italy and that we’re doing in Europe,” she said, suggesting that only she could unite Europe’s conservatives.

“I’m doing it because in addition to being president of Brothers of Italy I’m also the leader of the European conservatives who want to have a decisive role in changing the course of European politics,” she added.

In her rise to power, Meloni, as head of Brothers of Italy, often railed against the European Union, “LGBT lobbies” and what she has called the politically correct rhetoric of the left, appealing to many voters with her straight talk.

“I am Giorgia, I am a woman, I am a mother, I am Italian, I am a Christian” she famously declared at a 2019 rally.

She used a similar tone Sunday, instructing voters to simply write “Giorgia” on their ballots.

“I have always been, I am, and will always be proud of being an ordinary person,” she shouted.

EU rules require that “newly elected MEP credentials undergo verification to ascertain that they do not hold an office that is incompatible with being a Member of the European Parliament,” including being a government minister.

READ ALSO: Why is Italy’s government being accused of helping tax dodgers?

The strategy has been used before, most recently in Italy in 2019 by Meloni’s deputy prime minister, Matteo Salvini, who leads the far-right Lega party.

The EU Parliament elections do not provide for alliances within Italy’s parties, meaning that Brothers of Italy will be in direct competition with its coalition partners Lega and Forza Italia, founded by Silvio Berlusconi.

The Lega and Forza Italia are polling at about seven percent and eight percent, respectively.

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