US authorities blocked the sale of a Pablo Picasso painting following a request from Italy after the $11.5 million work of art’s owners were charged with embezzlement and fraud, the US government said yesterday.<\/p>\n
The US Justice Department said it had “restrained” the 1909 masterpiece “Compotier et tasse”, which had been offered for private sale in New York, amid a probe into its owners, Gabriella Amati and her late husband Angelo Maj.<\/p>\n
The couple have been charged by Italian prosecutors with a tax swindle which netted them some $44m.<\/p>\n
US authorities have said the Picasso painting was acquired with money obtained through criminal activity.<\/p>\n
US and Italian authorities are now working to repatriate the painting to Italy as swiftly as possible, a statement said.<\/p>\n
“We are pleased to have played a role in securing this valuable work of art by the celebrated artist, Pablo Picasso, on behalf of the Italian government,” US Attorney Preet Bharara said.<\/p>\n
“Our commitment to ‘taking the profit out of crime’ transcends national boundaries and is the operating principle of our asset forfeiture programme.”<\/p>\n
US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers tracked down the painting in New York in May before a federal court signed a restraining order after a formal request from Italy. “Restraining this valuable artwork is an effort to help recover some of the estimated $44m that this couple stole from the tax-paying citizens of Naples,” ICE director John Morton said.<\/p>\n
“We are very pleased that our investigation has led to the recovery of this painting that is so significant to the Italian people.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
US authorities blocked the sale of a Pablo Picasso painting following a request from Italy after the $11.5 million work of art’s owners were charged with embezzlement and fraud, the US government said yesterday.<\/p>\n
The US Justice Department said it had “restrained” the 1909 masterpiece “Compotier et tasse”, which had been offered for private sale in New York, amid a probe into its owners, Gabriella Amati and her late husband Angelo Maj.<\/p>\n
The couple have been charged by Italian prosecutors with a tax swindle which netted them some $44m.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":8737,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-174","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=174"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8737"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=174"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}