Chicago home holds treasure trove of stolen artifacts

WASHINGTON (CNS) — Hundreds of artifacts, including letters from 12th-century popes and religious artwork, have been returned to Italy after spending decades in a home near Chicago, FBI spokesman Ross Rice said in a June 8 statement.

The returned items were just a portion of the more than 3,500 letters, artworks and books discovered by family and investigators in the Berwyn, Ill., home of John Sisto after his death in 2007.

While trying to settle his estate, Sisto’s family members called the Berwyn Police Department to investigate once they realized the historic value of the collection. The Berwyn police contacted the FBI’s Chicago division, and the FBI’s Art Crimes Unit spent the next two years identifying the artifacts and determining how such a huge trove made it from Italy to Illinois.

Investigators believe that Sisto’s father, Giuseppe “Joseph” Sisto, secretly shipped the items to his son beginning in the early 1960s so John could then resell them at his collectibles shop in Berwyn. The elder Sisto was an Italian native who probably obtained the different artifacts through a third party who looted from museums, libraries and private collections in the Bari region of Italy, Rice said.