Ecuador’s President Rafael Correa is in Italy, hailing that country’s decision to return thousands archaeological artifacts to his South America country.  It’s one of the largest repatriations of pilfered treasures.

“Returning from Italy is the greatest return in history, more than 4,600 archaeological pieces,” President Correa said, adding that the items being returned came largely from the Tolita culture, which developed in the coastal region of Southern Colombia and Northern Ecuador between 600 BCE and 200 CE. 

Correa attended a ceremony with Mayor Marco Doria of Genoa, Italy, who presented Correa with a symbolic example of the 4,858 archaeological pieces.  These were recovered during three investigations by the United Nations into the illegal trafficking of national heritage goods.

Correa says rogue treasure hunters were able to plunder the objects from Ecuador during the 1960s and ‘70s, a time when “there was no control” and when “tens of thousands of archaeological pieces” were lost.

“Ecuador has already recovered 13,000 pieces, but this is the largest ‘rescue operation’ that’s occurred, so far,” said Guillame Long of Ecuador’s National Committee to Combat the Illegal Trade of Art, who noted that Italy knows what it’s like to have treasure hunters pilfer important archeological treasures and abscond with them to foreign museums or private collections.