Art police on Wednesday seized five Roman amphorae that traffickers had removed from an ancient shipwreck and hidden elsewhere under the sea off the Sicilian island of Filicudi.
Investigators were alerted to unusual activity off the coast of the island, which forms part of the Aeolian archipelago, and discovered the first-century AD amphorae stashed in a natural gorge not far from the shipwreck.
The amphorae, which police said would have later been removed and placed on the illegal antiquities market, have been handed over to Sicily's superintendency for the sea and in the future will go on show in a regional museum.
