The Operation “Augusto Imperatore” started within the framework of an investigation conducted in the last months of 2007 into an organization dealing with the trafficking in archaeological material, set up in the Provinces of Venice and Treviso as well as in the countryside around the town of San Felice a Cancello, in Caserta Province.

According to the information gathered during an intelligence activity carried out by the Guardia di Finanza personnel in the antique dealers circles, this organization – of Campania origin and with ramifications in the Triveneto area – had established a network of contact persons able to transfer abroad artefacts coming from illegal excavations, carried out in the above-mentioned Italian areas, as well as to supply the international market connected with yesteryear collecting.

Following information gathering, the activities conducted by the judicial police made it possible to detect the organization leader who was responsible - among others - for the theft of an important bronze bust of imperial period from an archaeological site traced back to the in Atestina civilization in Treviso province.

Following complex patrol and search activities, coordinated by Rome Judicial Authority, investigators detected huge quantities of archaic materials hidden inside the luggage of unsuspected travellers who were crossing the Brenner pass towards Switzerland and Austria where they would probably be sold to an antique dealer of the exclusive Viennese ring.

Further thorough investigations into the whole organization revealed the existence of frequent contacts between one of the travellers controlled at the Brenner Pass and another individual - a relative of his, resident of the United Stated - who was tasked with the distribution, on the market of antiques dealers in the USA, of archaeological works stolen in Italy and hidden inside the luggage of various members of the association, of Italian origin, coming back home from their holidays.

Search activities conducted as to the persons residing in Triveneto and in San Felice a Cancello (Caserta) – town of origin of the Italian people who moved to the U.S.A. – made it possible to discover more than 1.200 artefacts all having a very important historical and archaeological interest.

In November 2008, following the granting of legal assistance requested to the Authorities of Connecticut (USA), Italian investigators went to the towns of Wallingford and Meriden (USA) and took part in the judicial police activities carried out by the New Haven Immigration & Customs Enforcement service, which permitted the discovery and the seizure (and subsequent repatriation) of the following materials:

- many funerary objects consisting in more than 100 bronze and ceramic artefacts, all traced back to the 6th and 5th centuries BC - coming from an aristocratic tomb of the Osco-Samnite period - which was then identified by experts and archaeologists as the archaic burial ground of San Felice a Cancello;

- many photographs concerning an excavation conducted by the aforesaid Italo-Americans during their stay in their town of origin, in Caserta province.

Further checks made in Italy, on the basis of the new elements gathered during the enquiries conducted in the USA, made it possible to detect the sites from where the objects had been stolen and, with the assistance of the local Superintendence for archaeological property, to start a scientific excavation aimed at characterizing the site and recovering all the funerary objects stolen from the burial ground and then given to a museum.