AP — ITALIAN POLICE RECOVER LOOTED ARTIFACTS TAKEN FROM ANCIENT ROMAN VILLA

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ROME (AP) — Police in Rome have recovered dozens of looted artifacts, including a fresco believed to have been stripped from an ancient Roman villa.

Police were investigating 31 people who allegedly operated in Italy and France as part of a European art trafficking ring, a police statement said February 19. No arrests have been made.

The remains of the fresco, which was stolen in the 1970s, are believed to belong to the First Century AD villa of the Emperor Nero’s wife Poppea in a site near Pompeii. The villa is in the area hit by the eruption in AD 79 of Mount Vesuvius, which killed thousands of people and buried Pompeii and neighboring towns in 20 feet of volcanic ash.

Also recovered were two Fourth Century BC vases from the southern region of Apulia and other pottery of Greek origin imported millennia ago by the Etruscan civilization in central Italy.

Italian police, who did not immediately return phone calls for comment, said in the statement that the items turned up in collections in Switzerland, France and Spain and were recovered with the help of local authorities.