Two Moldovan men sentenced to 12 and 13 years’ imprisonment for stealing several paintings from a museum in Italy
Prosecutors from the Prosecutor’s Office for Combating Organized Crime and Special Cases (PCCOCS) announce on Tuesday, December 13, the sentencing of two men from Criuleni and Straseni, involved in a robbery of a museum in Italy in 2015, to sentences of 12 and 13 years in closed prison.
The crime took place in September 2015, when the two men, as members of a criminal group made up of citizens of Italy and Moldova, took part in a robbery attack, with the use of weapons, in the Museum of the Old Castle in the Italian city of Verona.
According to the sentence handed down by the Buiucani Court in Chisinau, the criminal group stole 17 paintings worth €17 million.
“Prior to the attack, one of the two defendants inspected the surroundings of the museum and captured photographic images to facilitate the commission of the crime. Subsequently, together with the second convict, they undertook to transport the stolen paintings from the museum to Ukraine and Moldova and then to offer them for sale. According to the file, the paintings were to be sold for three million euros, and negotiations were conducted in Chisinau and Tiraspol,” PCCOCS notes.
After the Italian authorities investigated the case in 2016, they informed the Moldovan authorities, who started their own investigations, and in March 2016, the arrests on the file took place.
“Subsequently, requests were made to the Italian authorities, which, after translation, were attached to the case file sent to the PCCOCS prosecutor in January 2017. However, during the judicial investigation phase, new information came to light, which made it necessary to make another request to the Italian authorities, and as a result of the national investigations and cooperation with the Italian authorities, the sentence was handed down to the defendants aged 36 and 38,” a statement from the Prosecutor’s Office added.
The Italian authorities have regained possession of the paintings stolen from the Verona museum, PCCOCS said.
The sentence is subject to appeal to the Chisinau Court of Appeal, during which time the defendants are presumed innocent, according to the law.
