Antiquities trafficking

Manhattan District Attorney's Office returns antiquities worth a total of $500,000 to Mexico

The trove of 30 Mesoamerican objects includes a ceremonial trophy for the first ball game

US authorities return antiquities valued at $10m to India

The repatriated artefacts—1,440 in all—included pieces that had passed through the New York galleries of Subhash Kapoor and Nancy Wiener

A new online museum is sharing the histories of repatriated objects

The digital Museum of Looted Antiquities aspires to be an encyclopaedic repository on returned cultural artefacts—and to expose smuggling networks

Officials in New York return antiquities worth $14m to Pakistan

Some of the 133 objects being repatriated are associated with the antiquities smugglers Subhash Kapoor and Richard Beale

US authorities return antiquities linked with notorious smuggling ring to Egypt

The Egyptian items repatriated by the Manhattan District Attorney's office this week, collectively valued at $1.4m, include a wood coffin face and a royal alabaster vase

Met Museum signs cultural-property agreement with Thailand and returns two statues

In a ceremony at the museum, Met director Max Hollein signed a "memorandum of understanding" together with a representative of the Thai cultural ministry

Getty Museum restitutes ancient bronze head to Turkey

More than a decade after Turkey asked for it back, the sculpture will finally be returned

Art Institute of Chicago accused of holding onto Nazi-looted Egon Schiele

The museum insists that heirs to the original collector waited too long to file their claim for the valuable work on paper

Princeton University Art Museum identifies 16 artefacts linked to alumnus and alleged smuggler

Edoardo Almagià, who graduated from Princeton University in 1973, has been connected to a range of antiquities currently in the museum's collection

US authorities return a $3.7m trove of antiquities to Greece

Many of the 30 objects being repatriated are linked to the disgraced dealers Michael Ward and Robin Symes

The Metropolitan Museum will repatriate 16 Khmer sculptures to Cambodia and Thailand

The museum had been pressured and petitioned for years to return objects tied to smuggler Douglas Latchford

US museum repatriates 44 antiquities to Egypt, Italy and Turkey

The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts cooperated in an investigation that determined each of the 44 objects had been stolen, looted or trafficked

Antiquities worth $1m, including a piece tied to trafficker Subhash Kapoor, returned to Nepal

The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office linked one of the works to Kapoor; another had been in the Rubin Museum’s collection

Antiquities trafficking charges upheld against former Louvre director Jean-Luc Martinez

French high court rejects Martinez's appeal but drops charges against curator Jean-François Charnier in Egyptian antiquities investigation

US university museum returns five looted antiquities to Italy

Two of the objects will be handed over the Italian authorities, while three will remain on view at the Michael C. Carlos Museum at Emory University in Atlanta

Cleveland Museum of Art sues the Manhattan District Attorney to retain ownership of $20m bronze statue

The museum had revised its own prior research in an apparent attempt to keep a headless sculpture believed to depict Marcus Aurelius

Looted antiquities worth $19m returned to Italian authorities in New York

Some of the 19 artefacts handed over by the Manhattan District Attorney’s office had ties to notorious traffickers

US authorities return 33 looted antiquities to Cambodia

The artefacts belonged to the late collector George Lindemann and were turned over to authorities voluntarily by his family

Bronze Roman statue, believed to have been looted from Turkey, seized from Cleveland Museum of Art

The museum had recently revised public information about the sculpture, likely a depiction of Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius, in an apparent attempt to distance itself from its alleged looting

'More than 1,500' artefacts were stolen from British Museum, internal investigation reportedly reveals

A Unesco antiquities trafficking expert says the theft is "probably the worst case so far"

Officials from three countries have called on Denver Art Museum to return eight artefacts in its collection

Six of the eight allegedly looted objects were donated to the museum by Emma C. Bunker, an associate of smuggler Douglas Latchford

Denver Art Museum cut ties with a disgraced donor—but critics say that’s not enough

Benefactor Emma Bunker worked closely with antiquities smuggler Douglas Latchford

Antiquities trafficking is not ‘the third largest illicit trade in the world’, researchers claim

New report traces the origins of the oft-repeated superlative, which its authors say is incorrect and actually makes it harder to fight trafficking

Art marketinterview

'The most illiquid property you can have is a Greek vase': Vincent Geerling on the challenges facing the antiquities trade

The chairman of the International Association of Dealers in Ancient Art reflects on an increasingly scrutinised industry as the organisation marks its 30th anniversary

Douglas Latchford’s estate hands over $12m to settle US trafficking case

The late antiquities dealer was accused of profiting off stolen Cambodian antiquities

California man found guilty of smuggling ancient Roman mosaic looted from Syria into US

Mohamad Alcharihi faces up to two years in prison and will be sentenced at the end of August

California man on trial for allegedly importing Roman mosaic looted during Syrian civil war to US

Mohamad Yassin Alcharihi is accused of misrepresenting the true value of a mosaic that was looted from Syria in 2015

Antiquities trafficking investigator appointed president of Harvard Law Review—a position once held by Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Barack Obama

Apsara Iyer says looting of Indian temples was a "wake-up call" to understanding how cultural heritage and crime intersect

The Metropolitan Museum will return 15 sculptures sold by trafficker Subhash Kapoor to India

The repatriation comes after a report found more than 1,000 works linked to suspected or convicted traffickers in the museum’s collection