Investigators seize 27 ‘looted’ antiquities from New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art

Investigators have seized 27 “looted” antiquities worth more than $13m from New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art and they will now be returned to Italy and Egypt, according to a report.

The museum says that it has been cooperating with the Manhattan district attorney’s office to repatriate the ancient artifacts, which were obtained to highlight ancient Rome, Greece, and Egypt, says The New York Times.

The items, 21 from Italy and six from Egypt, were seized under three search warrants over the past six months, and are scheduled for ceremonies in their original countries next week.

Officials say that the Italian pieces are worth around $10m, while the six Egyptian items are valued at $3.2 million.

The district attorney’s office says that eight of the items were obtained by the museum from Gianfranco Becchina, who ran a gallery in Switzerland before being investigated in Italy for illegally dealing artifacts in 2001.

In 2011, Italian officials confiscated 6,300 Greek and Roman artifacts from him after a judge ruled that the items had been looted going back to the 1970s. No criminal charges were brought because of the statute of limitations.

He has also been convicted of receiving stolen artifacts in Greece.

However, most of the items became part of the Manhattan museum’s collection long before accusations were made against Becchina, the newspaper reported.

The Met said in a statement that it had only learned information about the Italian items following the district attorney’s investigation.

Museum bosses said that the way it reviewed new acquisitions was now more rigorous than when these items had been obtained.

“The norms of collecting have changed significantly in recent decades and The Met’s policies and procedures in this regard have been under constant review over the past 20 years,” said in a statement.

“Each of these objects has unique and complex circumstances, and with all, The Metropolitan Museum of Art has been fully supportive of the Manhattan district attorney’s office investigations.”

Among the items removed from the Met, was a drinking cup from around 470 BC, valued at $1.2m, which was bought from the Becchina gallery in 1979.

A statuette of a greek goddess from around 400 BC, worth $400,000, which was given as a gift by British antique dealer Robin Symes, who was jailed in 2005, will also be returned.

In a separate move, investigators obtained a warrant to seize a sixth-century stone sculpture of a Hindu mother goddess, which the museum got in 1993.