The culture and sports ministry, in an announcement on Thursday, welcomed the happy outcome of a lengthy investigation by the Manhattan District Attorney's Office in New York, which has resulted in the return of 47 stolen antiquities to Greece. During the case it was proved that, among the thousands of items from various cultures in a collection owned by Michael Steinhardt, one of the largest art collectors in the world, 180 were the products of antiquities trafficking and illegally exported from their countries of origin.