JAKARTA - Fifty-eight stolen antiques worth about $19 million were returned to Italy by New York authorities at a ceremony on Tuesday.
The items, most of which have been displayed at the New York Metropolitan Art Museum for years, include the 'The Marble Head of Athens,' worth about $3 million.
"We had the privilege of returning it today," Colonel Matthew Bogdanos, head of Antiquities Trafficing Unit, Manhattan District Attorney's Office, promised "more seizures and more repatriations" over the remainder of the year.
The items returned also included a drinking cup called "White-Ground Kylix," "Bronze Bust of a Man," to vases, plates, and other kitchen utensils. Some came from billionaire Michael Steinhardt's collection.
The antiques were sold by convicted looters, including Giacomo fenis and Giovanni Franco Beccina, who used locals to attack unguarded sites in Italy, according to the Manhattan DA office.
The pieces are "part of our past, our ancestors," Italian police general Roberto Riccardi said at the ceremony.
"And they belong to the community. They will return to the community where they come from and future generations."
It is known, since the early 2010s, the Bogdanos antique unit has confiscated 4,500 pieces worth more than 250 million US dollars.
Bogdanos attributes such success to unprecedented cooperation.
"That's happening now because the Manhattan District Prosecutor's Office formed an Antiquities Trafficing Unit, the only kind of its kind in the world where prosecutors, investigators and analysts are all on the same team," he said.
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