WASHINGTON, April 27 (UPI) -- U.S. authorities say antiquities stolen in Italy, including two 2,000-year-old ceramic vessels and a Renaissance painting, were recovered in the United States.
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano officially returned the antiquities to Italian Ambassador Claudio Bisogniero Thursday at a ceremony at the Italian embassy in Washington, the department said in a news release.
Other items were a Roman marble sculpture and three music sheets from choir books dating to the 13th century.
U.S. Customs Enforcement's Homeland Security Investigations offices in New York and Rome and Italy's national police force, the Carabinieri, collaborated in investigations, the release said.
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The thefts of the ceramic vessels and the Roman marble statue have been linked to Gianfranco Becchina, an Italian national allegedly associated with Italian organized crime.
Investigators learned an Attic red-figured pelike, circa 480-460 B.C., had been sold for $80,500, and a red-figured situla, circa 365-350 B.C., for $40,000, at Christie's New York auction house in 2009. The release said investigators determined the vessels had been looted from archaeological sites in Italy and smuggled into Switzerland, and ownership had been transferred before they arrived in Beverly Hills, Calif. Authorities seized the objects in New York.
The Roman marble statue was believed to have been smuggled out of Italy through Switzerland and to the United States and was seized after special agents in New York found it had been auctioned and sold at Christie's for $26,500, the release said.
An investigation that began in 2008 found the Renaissance painting "Leda e il Cigno" (Leda and the Swan) by Lelio Orsi had been illegally imported through New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport and auctioned at Sotheby's New York in January 2008 for $1.6 million, the release said. The buyer forfeited the painting in January 2011 after learning of an Italian criminal investigation, Homeland Security said.
Two of the choir book pages had been stolen from St. Paul Church in Pistoia, Italy, in 1990, and the other from the Monastery of Monte Oliveto Maggiore, Siena, Italy, in 1975, and were being offered for sale online by a rare book dealer in Oregon, the release said. The same book dealer turned over the third choir book page after seeing evidence of its theft provided by the Italian government, Homeland Security said.
