NY art dealer arrested for selling stolen Asian artefacts.(Plus Douglas Latchford Death and Updates)

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Re: NY art dealer arrested for selling stolen Asian artefacts.(Plus Douglas Latchford Death and Updates)

Post by CEOCambodiaNews »

Manhattan D.A.’s Office Returns 27 Antiquities to Cambodia
[excerpts]
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Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance, Jr. today announced the return of 27 antiquities valued at approximately $3.8 million to the people of Cambodia during a repatriation ceremony attended by Cambodia’s Minister of Culture and Fine Arts, H.E. Dr. Phoeurng Sackona, Cambodian Ambassador to the United States, Chum Sounry and U.S. Homeland Security Investigations (“HSI”) Special Agent in Charge Erik Rosenblatt.

“Homeland Security Investigations is committed to combatting the plundering of cultural heritage and the illicit trafficking of cultural property,” said HSI New York Special Agent in Charge, Peter C. Fitzhugh. “Today, more than two dozen antiquities are being returned to the people of Cambodia; and while the underground market value of these items is in the millions, these pieces are invaluable to the preservation of Cambodian history. HSI New York is proud to have worked this investigation with DANY that led to the ultimate return of these items to their home country, as each artifact is a testimony to the rich cultural heritage of Cambodia.”

“This ceremony is a tribute to the cooperation between our two countries on preventing the looting and trafficking of Khmer artifacts,” said W. Patrick Murphy, U.S. Ambassador to Cambodia. “The United States is proud to play a role in securing the cultural heritage of the Cambodian people.”

The items returned today include 24 seized pursuant to the investigation of SUBHASH KAPOOR, as well as three pursuant to the investigation of NANCY WIENER.

For many years, the Manhattan D.A.’s Antiquities Trafficking Unit, along with law enforcement partners at HSI, has been investigating KAPOOR and his co-conspirators for the illegal looting, exportation, and sale of ancient art from Sri Lanka, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Cambodia, Thailand, Nepal, Indonesia, Myanmar, and other nations. KAPOOR and his co-defendants generally smuggled looted antiquities into Manhattan and sold the pieces through KAPOOR’S Madison Avenue-based gallery, Art of the Past. From 2011 to 2020, the D.A.’s Office and HSI recovered more than 2,500 items trafficked by KAPOOR and his network. The total value of the pieces recovered exceeds $143 million.

The D.A.’s Office first issued an arrest warrant for KAPOOR in 2012. In July 2019, a complaint and series of arrest warrants for KAPOOR and seven co-defendants were filed and an indictment was filed in October 2019. In July 2020, the DA’s Office filed extradition paperwork for KAPOOR, who is currently in prison in India pending the completion of his ongoing trial in Tamil Nadu.

The three non-Kapoor pieces being returned to Cambodia resulted from the investigation of WIENER, who was charged in December 2016 with Criminal Possession of Stolen Property in the First Degree, Criminal Possession of Stolen Property in the Second Degree, and Conspiracy in the Fourth Degree. Between at least 1999 and 2016, WIENER allegedly utilized her New York-based business, Nancy Wiener Gallery, to buy, smuggle, launder, and sell millions of dollars’ worth of antiquities stolen from Afghanistan, Cambodia, China, India, Pakistan, and Thailand.

In full: https://kh.usembassy.gov/manhattan-d-a- ... -cambodia/
By U.S. Mission Cambodia | 10 June, 2021 |

Photos from AKP, Phnom Penh, June 17, 2022 :
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https://www.akp.gov.kh/post/detail/256140
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Re: NY art dealer arrested for selling stolen Asian artefacts.(Plus Douglas Latchford Death and Updates)

Post by CEOCambodiaNews »

Long read:
Businessweek
An Art Crime For the Ages
Deep in the Cambodian jungle, investigators are unraveling a network that trafficked antiquities on an unprecedented scale and brought them all the way to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
By Matthew Campbell
29 June 2022 at 00:01 CEST

The looters arrived late in the afternoon at Koh Ker, a ruined 10th century city in northern Cambodia. They made their way through scrubby jungle to Prasat Krachap, a compact stone temple dedicated to the Hindu god Shiva and his son Skanda. They walked carefully. The countryside was strewn with land mines, and on another expedition some of the looters had watched a wandering cow be blown up.

The leader of the band, a muscular man named Toek Tik, had selected Prasat Krachap carefully. As a boy, he’d been forced by the Khmer Rouge to serve as a child soldier. He escaped in the mid-1970s, disappearing into the forested slopes of a nearby mountain. While on the run he built up an intimate knowledge of ancient sites, sometimes using temples as shelters. This one, he thought, was particularly promising.

It was the autumn of 1997, near the end of 30 years of civil conflict in Cambodia. The men with Toek Tik were all marked by the violence. Some had fought, like him, with the Khmer Rouge, the genocidal communist party that had held the country from 1975 to 1979. Many were enmeshed in the subsequent contests for political control, which pitted what remained of the Khmer Rouge against more moderate socialists and forces allied with the Cambodian royal family.


The looters began digging in Prasat Krachap’s central shrine, attentive to the jolt of a shovel hitting stone instead of dirt. Eventually the contours of several humanlike figures emerged. The men kept digging through the night, exposing enough of the objects to haul them out using pieces of wood as levers. One of the sculptures, about three and a half feet tall, depicted Shiva, his lips in a hint of a smile, sitting cross-legged across from Skanda, who was rendered as a small boy extending his hands upward to clasp his father’s. Another statue of about the same height showed Skanda in his adult role as a god of war, sitting astride Paravani, a thick-bodied peacock, carved in such detail that each feather was distinct. Toek Tik and his men were probably the first people in centuries to lay eyes on these works.

They loaded the artifacts onto oxcarts, straining to lift the heavy stone. After days of travel on rutted country roads, they would transfer them to an antiquities broker near the Thai border. Each looter would receive about 15,000 Thai baht, a little over $400. From the border, The Peacock and Skanda and Shiva, as the two statues became known, made their way into the hands of a Bangkok-based British businessman named Douglas Latchford. Not long after receiving The Peacock, Latchford sold it to a collector for $1.5 million. Skanda and Shiva became part of his own trove of statues.

For more than 40 years, Latchford was the world’s foremost dealer of Cambodian antiquities. An energetic salesman, he invigorated a once-sleepy corner of the art market, securing seven-figure prices for objects that previously had modest commercial value and landing them in the collections of institutions including New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. Today his activities are at the center of one of the most complex art market investigations ever undertaken. Government officials and lawyers in the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh, academics in Paris, heritage advocates in Washington, and federal prosecutors in New York City are all involved, trying to unravel what they consider an historic crime: the theft of Cambodia’s archaeological treasures in a campaign of plunder that continued until almost the end of the 20th century.

Full article: https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2022 ... art-heist/
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Re: NY art dealer arrested for selling stolen Asian artefacts.(Plus Douglas Latchford Death and Updates)

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You need special access to this article, but it gives more information on stolen Khmer artefacts for those who are interested:

British Museum to be inspected for ‘looted’ Cambodian artefacts
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A specialist team will identify potentially stolen objects that were fraudulently sold by the late British art dealer Douglas Latchford
By Craig Simpson 2 July 2022 • 6:00pm
Artefacts from Cambodia’s Khmer Empire, like those seen here, may have been fraudulently sold to the British Museum Credit: Patrick Aventurier/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images

The British Museum will be scoured for “stolen” Cambodian artefacts, as experts have been granted permission to inspect its collection....
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/0 ... artefacts/
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Re: NY art dealer arrested for selling stolen Asian artefacts.(Plus Douglas Latchford Death and Updates)

Post by CEOCambodiaNews »

Cambodia, U.S. Celebrate Repatriation of 27 Cambodian Looted Artifacts
AKP Phnom Penh, July 13, 2022 --
The Kingdom of Cambodia and the United States of America celebrated the repatriation of 27 looted artifacts to Cambodia at the National Museum on July 13.

The event was presided over by Cambodian Minister of Culture and Fine Arts H.E. Dr. Phoeurng Sackona, visiting U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs H.E. Daniel J. Kritenbrink, and U.S. Ambassador to Cambodia H.E. W. Patrick Murphy.

According to a press release from the U.S. Embassy in Phnom Penh AKP received this afternoon, U.S. Assistant Secretary Kritenbrink highlighted a memorandum of understanding between the Royal Government of Cambodia and the United States, which has solidified U.S.-Cambodia cultural cooperation, facilitated the return of over 100 priceless antiquities, and built the capacity of Cambodians working on cultural heritage preservation.

H.E. Daniel J. Kritenbrink also praised the joint efforts of the U.S. Department of Justice and law enforcement, Manhattan District Attorney, Homeland Security Investigations, Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts, and U.S. Embassy that led to the return of 27 pieces.

“Today’s ceremony is a testament to the strong relationship between the United States and the Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts,” H.E. Daniel J. Kritenbrink said. “U.S. government initiatives, such as the Ambassadors Fund for Cultural Preservation, demonstrate our longstanding support for the restoration of historic sites of cultural significance for Cambodia.”
https://www.akp.gov.kh/post/detail/257657
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Re: NY art dealer arrested for selling stolen Asian artefacts.(Plus Douglas Latchford Death and Updates)

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^ Photos of the handover of 27 looted artefacts featured in the article above:

ImageImageImageImageImageImage
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Re: NY art dealer arrested for selling stolen Asian artefacts.(Plus Douglas Latchford Death and Updates)

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U.S. To Return 30 Stolen Ancient Artifacts To Cambodia
9 Aug 2022


The U.S. agreed on Monday to return 30 looted antiquities to Cambodia, including statues of Buddhist and Hindi deities carved more than 1,000 years ago. The items, which were stolen during civil conflicts between the 1960s and 1990s and sold to Westerners using fake documents, were voluntarily relinquished by U.S. museums and private collectors.
NBC News
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Re: NY art dealer arrested for selling stolen Asian artefacts.(Plus Douglas Latchford Death and Updates)

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Last Updated 19 hours ago
U.S. returns to Cambodia 30 antiquities looted from historic sites
By Luc Cohen
2 minute read
NEW YORK, Aug 8 (Reuters) - (This August story corrects 6th paragraph to state that Douglas Latchford was a dual citizen of Thailand and the United Kingdom, not Thailand and the United States)

The United States will return to Cambodia 30 looted antiquities, including bronze and stone statues of Buddhist and Hindu deities carved more than 1,000 years ago, U.S. officials said on Monday.

The Southeast Asian country's archaeological sites - including Koh Ker, a capital of the ancient Khmer empire - suffered widespread looting in civil conflicts between the 1960s and 1990s. Cambodia's government has since sought to repatriate stolen antiquities sold on the international market.

Damian Williams, the top federal prosecutor in Manhattan, said the items being returned were sold to Western buyers by Douglas Latchford, a Bangkok dealer who created fake documents to conceal that the items had been looted and smuggled.

Williams said the antiquities, including a 10th century sandstone statue depicting the Hindu god of war Skanda riding on a peacock, were voluntarily relinquished by U.S. museums and private collectors after his office filed civil forfeiture claims.

"These statues and artifacts ... are of extraordinary cultural value to the Cambodian people," Williams said at a ceremony in Manhattan announcing the return of the antiquities.

U.S. prosecutors in 2019 charged Latchford, a dual citizen of Thailand and the United Kingdom, with wire fraud and smuggling over the alleged looting. He died in Thailand in 2020.

The antiquities will be displayed at the National Museum of Cambodia in Phnom Penh, Cambodia's U.S. ambassador Keo Chhea told Reuters at the ceremony.
Full text and more photos : https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-paci ... 022-08-08/
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Re: NY art dealer arrested for selling stolen Asian artefacts.(Plus Douglas Latchford Death and Updates)

Post by CEOCambodiaNews »

A fascinating long read, tracking the traffickers of Cambodian antiquities:

An Art Crime For the Ages
Image
Deep in the Cambodian jungle, investigators are unraveling a network that trafficked antiquities on an unprecedented scale and brought them all the way to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
By Matthew Campbell
29 June 2022 at 00:01 CEST
The looters arrived late in the afternoon at Koh Ker, a ruined 10th century city in northern Cambodia. They made their way through scrubby jungle to Prasat Krachap, a compact stone temple dedicated to the Hindu god Shiva and his son Skanda. They walked carefully. The countryside was strewn with land mines, and on another expedition some of the looters had watched a wandering cow be blown up.

The leader of the band, a muscular man named Toek Tik, had selected Prasat Krachap carefully. As a boy, he’d been forced by the Khmer Rouge to serve as a child soldier. He escaped in the mid-1970s, disappearing into the forested slopes of a nearby mountain. While on the run he built up an intimate knowledge of ancient sites, sometimes using temples as shelters. This one, he thought, was particularly promising...

Image
Photos: The Metropolitan Museum of Art; U.S. Attorney’s Office (2); Peter Horree/Alamy; Jae C. Hong/AP Photo; Matthew Hollow/Royal Government of Cambodia *Matches statue described by Toek Tik
Article: https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2022 ... art-heist/
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Re: NY art dealer arrested for selling stolen Asian artefacts.(Plus Douglas Latchford Death and Updates)

Post by CEOCambodiaNews »

Quote from the above link:
Investigators believe that others [Khmer antiquities] ended up in the Palm Beach home of the pipeline tycoon George Lindemann. (Lindemann died in 2018; his son didn’t respond to requests for comment.)
See more on this topic here: newsworthy/most-beautiful-home-allegedl ... 51008.html
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Re: NY art dealer arrested for selling stolen Asian artefacts.(Plus Douglas Latchford Death and Updates)

Post by John Bingham »

When are they going to start talking about the Guimet?
Silence, exile, and cunning.
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