They saved the historical artifact thanks to artificial intelligence

In Italy, law enforcement forces use specially developed artificial intelligence software to track down stolen works of art and prevent their illegal trade.

Italian Gendarmerie Cultural Heritage Protection Command teams took photos of artifacts they deemed suspicious at the annual antique fair held in Parma and transferred them to the security units' database.

Among the uploaded photos, the system issued a warning for a 17th-century oil painting depicting a young female figure wearing aqua green and red clothes and holding a scroll in her hand.

According to the BBC, as a result of the examination of the expert teams, it was determined that the painting was the Saint Agnese painting stolen from the Virgo Potens Church in the Sulmona town near Naples on the night of August 11, 2004.

It was revealed that the smugglers who stole the work had falsified it using the painting method in order to hide the identity of the painting.

While the white lamb on the saint's lap in the original work was transformed into parchment, the halo, which is the symbol of sainthood, and the palm branch in her hand were completely erased, turning the work into a painting of an ordinary pagan woman.

The artificial intelligence algorithm called Swoads used by the Italian police managed to match the color layers and brushstroke traces of the painting with archive records from 20 years ago, despite the subsequent painting and format changes on it.