Seventeen priceless paintings
stolen from a Verona museum last November and found in Ukraine
in early may will return home in November, Premier Matteo Renzi
said after speaking with Ukraine President Petro Poroshenko at
Shimon Peres's funeral Friday.
On May 11 police said the Renaissance paintings including
canvases by Mantegna, Pisanello, Rubens and Tintoretto
stolen from Verona's Castelvecchio Museum had been recovered in
Ukraine.
Local police arrested an unspecified number of people.
A week previously one of two remaining fugitives suspected
in the heist was arrested on a European arrest warrant while
attempting to cross into Romania from Moldova.
Moldovan national Anatolie Burlac is accused of being part
of the gang that broke in to the museum on November 19, making
off with paintings worth an estimated 15 million euros overall.
One suspect remains at large, police said.
The gang made off with 17 paintings, including Andrea
Mantegna's Holy Family with a Saint, Pisanello's Madonna of the
Quail, Peter Paul Rubens' Lady with Campions, and six
Tintorettos, museum officials said.
In March this year, the Verona flying squad arrested 12
Moldovan and Italian suspects.
Investigators believe private security guard Francesco
Silvestri, who was on duty at the museum on the night of the
heist, Silvestri's twin brother Pasquale and the latter's
Moldovan wife Svetlana Pkachuck acted as go-betweens for the
robbers.
photo: Boy with Drawing by Giovanni Francesco Caroto
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