AP Photo/Tina Fineberg

Raymond W. Kelly (left), former United States Customs Commissioner, hands over a magnificent fifth-century B.C. hammered gold phiale (libation bowl) to Italian Consul General Giorgio Radicati in February 2000 in New York. Wall Street investor and art collector Michael Steinhardt had purchased the phiale in the early 1990s from an American dealer for $1.2 million. Italy later sued Steinhardt in an American court, claiming that the phiale had been looted from an archaeological site in Sicily. After Italy won both the suit and the appeal, the court ordered Steinhardt to turn over the bowl to Italian authorities. The Italians who illegally smuggled the phiale out of Italy and into the U.S., using false documents, “have not yet been indicted,” according to Roberto Conforti.