Italian police, in cooperation with the FBI, foiled a smuggling of stolen artifacts in
Magna Graecia organized by
Italian criminals, in contact with unsuspected antique dealers, businessmen, and some curators of the largest museums in the world.
During the police operation a warehouse was seized in
Switzerland, containing 5000 priceless
antiquities stolen from
Italian ground, ready to be sold on the international market.
In USA two months ago Federal authorities have seized a
Roman sarcophagus hidden in a warehouse in Queens,
New York. For over thirty years scholars
had lost track of this wonderful artifact in Carrara marble, made about 1,800 years ago, on which is carved the image of a lying and sleeping woman, that Homeland
Security agents have named "The Sleeping Beauty ".
Placed inside a box, was about to be sent to
his Japanese buyer, when it was intercepted by the Federal Prosecutor in
New York who has decided for the seizure and return to
Italy.
The buyer of the sarcophagus, which
had paid $ 3 million, was Noriyoshi Horiuchi, famous merchant of
antiquities in close ties with Gianfranco Becchina, the owner of the warehouse seized in
Switzerland.
Becchina handled businesses with the world's greatest museums, including the Louvre, the Museum of Munch, the Metropolitan in
New York, the Museum of Boston, the Ninagawa of Hurashiki in
Japan, the Ashmolean in
Oxford, the museum of Utrecht, the Museum of Toledo in Ohio and many others. Becchina made deals even with prestigious Universities such as Columbia, Washington, Kassel,
Princeton and
Yale.
His most famous sale is the Crater Asteas, paid 500 thousand dollars and many years later returned to
Italy. It was clandestinely excavated in 1974 in Sant'Agata dei Goti, in
Campania.
Policemen have also seized Mr. Becchina's dossier, an archive containing photos of the pieces, names of buyers, and salaries of criminal unofficial diggers. In the dossier Becchina there are many more objects photographed and recorded, compared to those found in
his deposits, this means that there are
still many stolen works of art that are to be found.
Source:
http://inchieste.repubblica.it/it/repubblica/rep-it/2015/01/12/news/mafia_e_arte-99674768/?ref=HREC1-35#gallery-slider=103055231Regards
Nico
