The Nativity was stolen in 1969 and could have been hidden in Switzerland

Hopes of solving one of the worst art crimes in history have been reignited after Italian investigators announced they had received new information.

Nativity with St Francis and St Lawrence, a Caravaggio masterpiece stolen in 1969, could have been hidden in Switzerland after it fell into the hands of organised crime, the head of Italy’s anti-mafia commission said on Thursday.

The new lead on the whereabouts of the 17th-century painting – a depiction of the newborn Christ on a bed of straw, painted in the chiaroscuro technique – came from a former mobster-turned-informant, who revealed to Italian investigators that it had once been held by Gaetano Badalamenti, a Sicilian “boss of bosses” who was known as one of the ringleaders of an infamous heroin trafficking network in the US called the Pizza Operation.

Investigators announced this week that Gaetano Grado, the mafia informant, said Badalamenti had been put in touch with an art dealer in Switzerland after obtaining the work – also known as The Adoration – from another mafia boss. Badalamenti was arrested in 1984 under the leadership of the then US attorney in New York, Rudolph Giuliani, and was accused and convicted of helping to bring $1.65bn worth of heroin into the US. He died in a Massachusetts hospital in 2004.

The fate of The Nativity has been a subject of speculation for nearly half a century, ever since two criminals stole the painting from the Oratory of San Lorenzo in Palermo, where they used razors to cut the painting out of its frame.

Among theories that have captured the imagination of art history buffs is that the painting – long believed to have been stolen by elements of the Sicilian mafia – may have been eaten by rats after being left to rot in a barn.

But this week’s news suggested it could yet be recovered.

Rosy Bindi, the head of Italy’s anti-mafia commission, said new evidence suggested The Nativity was intact and could be in Switzerland, after being sold to art traffickers there.

“We have collected enough evidence to launch a new investigation and ask the collaboration of foreign authorities, especially to the Swiss ones,” said Bindi. “We hope to find it and bring it back to its home in Palermo.”

The mafia has long been known to have an interest in stealing precious artwork and using it as a form of collateral.

Caravaggio’s masterpiece was thought to have been painted by the old master in Rome and later moved to Sicily.

Leoluca Orlando, the mayor of Palermo, who has helped transform the Sicilian capital from a mafia stronghold to a European capital of culture, said the theft of the painting had dealt a blow to the city at a time – in 1969 – when it was dominated by mobsters and godfathers.

“Today this city has changed and is demanding back everything the mafia took away from it,” he said. “Even getting back a small piece of it would be considered a victory.”