Italian Police Used AI to Identify $200M. Worth of Stolen Art and Antiquities

Italian police used an AI platform called SWOADS, developed by IT engineer Salvatore Rapicavoli and in use by the Carabinieri art crime squad since 2023, to flag a painting photographed at the Mercanteinfiera antique fair in October 2024 as a match for a 17th-century painting of Saint Agnese stolen from a church in Sulmona 20 years earlier, despite the original lamb having been painted over with a scroll. According to the BBC, SWOADS has recovered more than 300 large paintings and statues and over 165,000 small objects such as coins, letters and medals, worth over $200 million in total. The Saint Agnese painting was returned to the church, but the thieves have not been apprehended.