"Allowing American citizens whose property was illegally stolen by the Castro regime to use American courts to seek justice is the right thing to do," he said.

Mayor William J. Pascrell turned over an inventory of the art collection at the city's public library to the Passaic County Prosecutor's Office, which is looking into complaints that many objects have been stolen or sold illegally.

In his first weeks in office, Attorney General Schneiderman launched a plan to root out fraud and return money illegally stolen from New York taxpayers at no additional cost to the state.

All three republics insist that they are now re-establishing the independence illegally stolen from them then.

And since most of the merchandise here - everything from Sony stereos to Levis and Rolexes - is stolen or imported illegally, merchants guard their stalls like watchdogs.

Both countries have expressed solidarity over the need to defend the recovery of cultural and archaeological heritage in the form of artifacts that have been illegally stolen from Peru and Mexico and which are to this date, illegally or legitimately kept in foreign locations.

For 400 years, there was a family of thieves stealing money and priceless property, particularly those items that were originally illegally stolen.

Mr. Turover, a compact, handsome man, says he is not afraid to speak out, and says that if he is threatened, he will release documents from an "archive," though he insists with a half smile that he has never illegally stolen or copied confidential documents.

Chen admitted being the author and copyright owner of most of the photographs, and stated that the private photographs had been stolen and published illegally without his consent.

She had argued that the platter, dug up near Palermo in 1980, was stolen and sold illegally to an American financier and collector, Michael Steinhardt, in 1991.