Italian Police Recover 14 Paintings from Mafia

Italian police have recovered 14 paintings, including one Salvador Dalí, from the collection of Gioacchino Campolo, an Italian businessman and convicted criminal with known mafia ties. Police found the first painting, which depicted Jesus healing a blind man, after following a search warrant to a home in Reggio Calabria. A crosscheck of the Italian database of stolen cultural properties indicated that the painting had been stolen from Randazzo, Sicily in 2011. The search then led police to an apartment in Messina, Sicily, where they discovered 13 more paintings, including the Salvador Dalí painting “Three Sphinxes of Bikini”. The owner of the property where the 13 paintings were recovered is believed to be a former employee of Campolo and has been charged with receiving stolen goods.

This is not the first time that Italian police have recovered paintings from Campolo’s collection. Campolo, who was sentenced to 18 years house arrest for criminal association and extortion, invested his estimated €320 million in illegal assets into multiple real estate holdings as well as a sizable art collection. In 2013 the Italian government confiscated 125 artworks from Campolo’s collection, which are now permanently on display for an exhibition titled “From Shadow to Light” at the Palace of Culture in Reggio Calabria.

-Maggie Utter