Italian police used artificial intelligence to identify a stolen 17th-century painting at an antique fair in October 2024. Officers from the Carabinieri Command for the Protection of Cultural Heritage uploaded photographs taken at Mercanteinfiera, a 40-year-old antiques village, into their art crime database. The AI system flagged an oil painting of a young woman holding a scroll as a match to Saint Agnese, stolen from Virgo Potens church in Sulmona two decades earlier.
The painting had been altered. The lamb the saint originally held was painted over with a scroll inscribed in Latin. The AI system, called SWOADS (Stolen Works of Art Detection System), identified what its developer calls "hidden visual fingerprints" by pairing similarities between color shades and silhouettes.
SWOADS was developed by Salvatore Rapicavoli, an IT engineer who joined the art crime team in 2023. The system has recovered more than 300 large paintings and statues plus more than 165,000 small objects including coins, letters, and medals. These recovered items are worth over $200 million. The painting of Saint Agnese was returned to Virgo Potens church. The thieves remain at large.