Stolen artifacts being sent back to Italy

When John Sisto's relatives cleaned out the collectibles dealer's suburban home after his death in 2007, they found thousands of Italian artifacts, manuscripts and antiquities, some dating back to 900 B.C., squirreled away in boxes.

The collection, worth between $5 million and $10 million, had been shipped to the Berwyn man over two decades by his father, who lived in Italy and likely bought the treasures from thieves who looted them from private collections, The FBI said.

Now nearly half the items -- those that can be identified as stolen -- are being returned to Italy, the FBI said Monday.

Items in the collection include hundreds of Etruscan artifacts produced between 500 B.C. and 900 B.C., parchments and manuscripts, some with wax papal seals dating to the 12th century, and more than 1,000 books and documents written by kings and popes.

It also includes a more modern document handwritten by fascist dictator Benito Mussolini: His handwritten preface to the book "Dux" by Margherita Sarfatti, published in 1926.

Sisto's relatives found some 3,500 items in the home. Members of the FBI's Art Crime Team have worked with Italian authorities to authenticate them since then.

The items that are not going back to Italy are being restored as property of the Sisto estate.

Sisto's father, Giuseppe "Joseph" Sisto, sent the items to his son with an eye to selling them for a profit, FBI officials theorize.

But the younger Sisto "appeared to be more interested in the historical value of these items than the monetary value and that is why he kept most of them there," said FBI spokesman Ross Rice.

There is no assurance that some items weren't sold to collectors, Rice said.

"Whatever additional items were sent here we wouldn't know," he said.

No one will be prosecuted criminally in the Chicago area in connection with the thefts, said Robert D. Grant, special agent in charge of the FBI's Chicago office. He expressed thanks to the Sisto family and the Berwyn police.

Italian authorities will have to determine whether to file charges against anyone under that country's cultural property laws, the FBI said.

"Not only do thefts such as these result in a significant monetary loss, but they also deprive the world of part of its cultural history," Grant said.

Most of the items appear to have come from the Bari region in southern Italy. They most likely started to arrive in the early 1960s and continued to be shipped to Berwyn until the elder Sisto died in 1982.