(ANSA) - VERONA - A Verona court on Monday handed down prison sentences totalling 31 years against four defendants for armed robbery and kidnapping conspiracy in a 2015 art heist from the city's Castelvecchio Museum.

Pasquale Silvestri Ricciardi was sentenced to 10 years eight months, his twin brother Francesco got 10 years, his Moldavian girlfriend Svetlana Tkachuk got six years and her fellow national Victor Potinga was sentenced to five years in prison.

Defendants Denis Damaschin from Italy and Anatolie Burlac from Moldavia earlier plea-bargained sentences of three years four months and one year eight months, respectively. The gang in November 2015 made off with 17 Old Master paintings worth an estimated 15 million euros overall, museum officials said at the time.

The loot included Andrea Mantegna's Holy Family with a Saint, Pisanello's Madonna of the Quail, Peter Paul Rubens' Lady with Campions, and six Tintorettos.

The paintings were discovered buried in a wood in Ukraine near the Moldavia border last May.

Ukraine has yet to return the paintings to Italy. (ANSA).