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Video length: 4 min
Italy: the hunt for art thieves
Italy: the hunt for art thieves
(France 2)
In Italy, tracking down stolen works of art is a priority. For 45 years, the heritage brigade has been known throughout the world, it now relays its work via an application.
It is a brigade that has inspired states around the world. Since 1969, she has been responsible for looking after what Italy has dearest or almost: its cultural and ancient heritage. Once a month, Emilio Romeo, a brigadier, patrols from the sky, above the largest archaeological site in the world: Pompeii and its outskirts. 66 hectares of ancient ruins which reveal new secrets every year, an open-air treasure and the ideal prey for thieves. So the agent is on the lookout for the slightest ground movement or suspicious trench in the surrounding areas.
They fly over Civita Giuliana, a Roman villa, whose existence was discovered in 2018 just as it was being looted by thieves. “We discovered that the thieves had dug a tunnel that reached this site”, said Captain Massimiliano Croce, commander of the cultural heritage protection unit. When they are warned, there is only one hole, in a garden. But going up the galleries dug by the thieves, they arrive at a ruin of a villa buried after the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD.
To best preserve its heritage and be sure that no work escapes its control, the Italian state has developed a mobile application which allows each citizen to scan a sculpture or painting found on the internet or in an antique dealer to verify that This is not a stolen work.
