Operation “Ulisse” (Ulysses) stemmed from one of the many monitoring activities of illegal excavations carried out at the necropolises of the Tyrrhenian coast, in the countryside of Cerveteri, Tarquinia and Montalto di Castro.

After the detection of an illegal archaeological excavation, the attention was focalized on a criminal group (previously involved in similar activities on nuragic territory) that desecrated archaic sites and had connections with art merchants who illegally bought funerary items originating from Etruria’s sepulchres.

This criminal organization performed its activity in Lazio, Tuscany and Lombardy; its operational base was in Brera, a central district of Milan, with branches all over Europe, in particular in Geneva, where – thanks to the judicial assistance activities carried out with the local Authorities – a consistent corpus of items of archaeological value, removed from excavations, was found in the Freeport, together with technical equipment fit for study and finding. In the house of a Milanese member of the Organization other archaeological finds about to be taken abroad were found and seized; he had already organized the exportation – at first to Switzerland and later to France – of a fresco of Pompei area, removed from a room in the Villa di Poppea Sabina in Oplontis (now Torre Annunziata).

The fresco had been removed in the ‘70s and had been put up on an unsuitable panel before its transit in the Geneva Freeport. Through the mediation of a local antique dealer, the fresco joined the collection of an industrialist of Bruxelles, till the year 2002, when a French press baron bought it to glamorize his resort of Place Vendôme in the central Faubourg St. Honoré.

The French industrialist had begun to take contacts with technicians and restorers for the reconditioning of the fresco panel that should be brought back to its original state.

The complex investigations that were carried out with the cooperation of French Gendarmerie, allowed giving back to public view the Oplontis fresco and many other archaeological findings - some of which considered of very high interest by the Authorities of the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities – and paintings signed by and attributed to the most influential painters of Impressionism and 20th century art.

The paintings, albeit having a certain artistic value, were admirable fakes, complete with false documentation and fictitious expertise that had been specifically issued for providing guarantees of solvency in order to have access to preferential credit lines at unaware banks.

Operation “Ulisse” concluded with 31 people reported to the competent Judicial Authority for illegal excavation, handling stolen property and illegal export of cultural goods put under preservation.