17 stolen masterpieces returned to Italy

VERONA, Italy — Seventeen masterpieces valued at 17 million euros ($17.7 million) were returned to Italy from Ukraine on Wednesday after being stolen by masked, armed robbers from a Verona art museum last year.

Italian Culture Minister Dario Franceschini, who traveled to Kiev to retrieve the paintings — which included works by Rubens, Tintoretto and Mantegna — said the possibility of ever recovering them once seem remote. Still, the paintings returned with little more than scratches after their long ordeal, according to an art expert.

“It’s an important day, because the works are all returning to Verona intact,” Franceschini said. “It was an ugly story that became a beautiful story.”

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko handed over the paintings to Franceschini in a ceremony in Kiev, saying “the theft of masterpiece paintings is akin to stealing part of the city’s heart.”

The paintings, wrapped in plastic bags, were recovered in May by Ukrainian border guards who intercepted them on a small island on the Dniester River during an attempt to smuggle them into Moldova.

They were stolen in November 2015 when three armed robbers entered the Castelvecchio Museum, located in a medieval castle, at closing time just before the alarm system was activated. The robbers calmly removed the paintings before escaping in a security guard’s car.