Inside ICE: Volume 2, Issue 24

ICE Efforts Bring Ancient Work Of Art Back To Italy

LOS ANGELES—A 2,300-year-old vase that was allegedly smuggled out of Italy and ended up in the Getty Museum’s antiquities collection arrived in Rome last week, capping a joint effort by ICE, Italian authorities and the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles to return the artifact to its original home.

Italian authorities traveled to Los Angeles and took possession of the ancient vase under a consent judgment negotiated by the United States Attorney’s Office and signed by attorneys representing the Getty Museum. In that judgment, the Museum voluntarily agreed to return the krater to the Italian government. The vase was flown from Los Angeles to New York on November 8, where it was placed on a connecting flight to Rome.

The krater, considered one of the best works by renowned Italian vase painter Asteas, has an appraised value of approximately $350,000. According to court records, the vase was unearthed by a laborer doing maintenance work on Italy’s canals during the 1970s. Initially offered a price of one million lire, the worker told Italian authorities he ultimately traded the artifact to a notorious Italian antiquities trafficker in exchange for a pig.

In 1978, a former Getty curator saw the krater in Switzerland where it was held by a private owner and two years later arranged for the museum to bring it to the United States on loan. After three years, the Getty formally purchased the artifact from a European art dealer, Gianfranco Becchina, for $275,000.

In 1999, Italian authorities made an official request to the United States government seeking return of the krater under the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty. In response, the United States Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles filed a forfeiture complaint last year naming the Asteas krater as the defendant, leading ICE to lodge a seizure warrant against the artifact. In mid-September attorneys for the Getty Museum signed off on the consent judgment, paving the way for the vase’s return to Italy.

“ICE’s mission is to prevent the illegal movement of people and goods across our nation’s borders—be it human beings, high-tech weapons, narcotics, or works of art,” said David Nehls, assistant special agent-in-charge for ICE investigations in Los Angeles. “Seeing this vase returned to Italy is particularly gratifying because it represents an important part of that country’s culture and history.” In a statement issued by the Italian Consulate in Los Angeles, Italian authorities expressed gratitude for the assistance and cooperation ICE provided throughout the entire operation.

The Italians intensified their efforts to secure the vase’s return earlier this year because they maintain the artifact is a crucial piece of evidence in the trial of two Americans, Marion True, the former curator of antiquities at the Getty, and Robert E. Hecht Jr., a prominent U.S. art dealer, on charges of antiquities trafficking.

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