17 paintings, valued at more than $18 million, stolen from a museum in Italy, have been recovered in Ukraine, about a mile from Ukraine’s border with Moldova, wrapped in plastic sheets.
The paintings were stolen last November by thieves just after the Verona museum’s staff had left but before a remote alarm system could be activated. They tied up the museum’s cashier and forced an armed guard to hand over the keys to his car, which they then used to get away.
Italian art experts have been invited to authenticate the works by artists like Rubens and Tintoretto.
Last month Ukrainian security services recovered four Dutch masterpieces, dating from the country’s 17th-century Golden Age, more than 10 years after they were stolen from a museum in the Netherlands.