U.S. Authorities Recover Major Collection of Looted Asian Artifacts

This week, the United States government filed suit to recover tens of millions of dollars worth of illicit artifacts, which criminals had plundered from ancient and sacred sites across Southeast Asia and then laundered onto the American art market, where they ended up in the collection of Netscape founder James H. Clark. ​ 

In doing so, U.S. investigators and prosecutors may have also solved a decades-long archeological mystery: experts believe the seizure includes a 1000-year-old masterpiece that ranks among the world’s “Ten Most Wanted Antiquities,” a list launched in 2020 by the Antiquities Coalition to help find some of the top looted, stolen, and missing cultural treasures from around the globe. 

This “Top Ten” shone a spotlight on a monumental sandstone sculpture of Ganesha, the elephant-headed Hindu god, who had once graced the 10th century Cambodian capital of Koh Ker. Standing five feet tall, it was photographed at the site in the 1930s, but then vanished during the country’s many years of civil war and genocide. A near identical twin emerged in a temporary exhibition at Berlin’s Asian Art Museum in 2004, prompting leading art historians and archeologists to sound alarms that the pieces were one and the same, only slightly modified to describe its illegal origins. Following the controversy, the “Berlin” Ganesha then disappeared itself, only resurfacing this week as one of the 35 objects targeted by U.S. authorities.

According to court filings, this Ganesha and the dozens of other pieces Clark voluntarily forfeited were tied to Douglas Latchford—the “adventurer scholar” who made front page headlines in last year’s Pandora Papers for smuggling blood antiquities from Cambodian war zones, and then hiding his millions of dollars in profits through the misuse of tax havens, trusts, and offshore accounts.

“The Antiquities Coalition commends the U.S. government for ensuring that Douglas Latchford’s death in 2020 did not end the quest to bring him and his co-conspirators to justice,” said Deborah Lehr, Chair and Founder of the Antiquities Coalition. “For a half century, Latchford plundered the rich heritage of the Cambodian people, crimes that we now know helped to fund the Civil War and Killing Fields. He also defrauded countless American collectors, including Mr. Clark. We are grateful for his cooperation and hope that this example inspires others to do the right thing, so more of the world’s top ten missing antiquities can return home.”

If this Ganesha is indeed the one photographed at Koh Ker in the 1930s, it will mark the first success from the Ten Most Wanted Antiquities list, an illustrated guide to artifacts from around the world that have been looted or stolen—and are still missing. The list is accompanied by posters of each object, published on the Antiquities Coalition’s website, which provide snapshots of the pieces’ significance, their theft, and their last known whereabouts. Any information leading to their possible recovery should be submitted to law enforcement using the included tip lines.

Read More Coverage:

Top Ten Most Wanted

The Ganesha is just one of the Ten Most Wanted Antiquities - an illustrated guide to some of the most significant looted, stolen, and missing artifacts from around the world. It shines a spotlight on the global crisis of cultural racketeering and enlists the public in finding and recovering these examples of priceless patrimony. We need your help to return these pieces to their rightful owners.

AC Chairman and Founder: There Must Be Criminal Consequences For Offenders Like Latchford

The unmasking of Douglas Latchford—who trafficked the Koh Ker Ganesha—is as a reminder that the $50.1 billion art market remains the largest unregulated industry in the world. In an oped published last month in The Hill, AC Chair and Founder Deborah Lehr argues that latest successes from the Manhattan DA highlight the fact that self policing of the art market has failed. Only criminal investigations & consequences will successfully halt cultural racketeering.

How We Got Here: The AC Digs Into The Pandora Papers, Which Exposed the Ganesha's Trafficker Douglas Latchford

On October 3, 2021, The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) published a groundbreaking investigation of millions of leaked documents that revealed stunning financial secrets and offshore dealings of world leaders, politicians, and billionaires from around the globe, better known as the Pandora Papers. 

One of the actors targeted in the expose is Douglas Latchford, the notorious antiquities trafficker indicted in 2019 for dealing in stolen art and artifacts. This investigation uncovers how Latchford and his family set up trusts in tax havens shortly after he was linked to looted antiquities, and used trusts and offshore accounts to store antiquities.

The expose is a must-read, deeply reported investigation that destroys so much of the false narrative that glorifies Douglas Latchford and the antiquities trade. The loopholes exposed threaten not just nations such as Cambodia, or even our world heritage, but the responsible market and the global financial system.

But there is a lot to dig into. You can read all about this major expose on Latchford and this extensive investigation using the links below. Learn how the ICIJ tracked ancient Cambodian artifacts to leading galleries and museums; see how this looted heritage connects to offshore trusts; and read as our own Executive Director and expert on the protection of Cambodian cultural heritage, Tess Davis, weighs in on the issues.

Dig Into the Coverage

International Consortium of Investigative Journalists

Tess Davis, the executive director of the Antiquities Coalition, an organization that campaigns against the trafficking of cultural artifacts, criticized the museum for not responding more thoroughly after a Latchford associate was indicted in 2016 and Latchford himself was indicted three years later.“The Met owed it to Cambodia — and itself — to do a full and public accounting of its Khmer collection then. That didn’t happen,” Davis said. ”There has still been no full and public accounting from the Met. It’s never too late to do the right thing, but what is the Met waiting for at this point?” - Spencer Woodman, Peter Whoriskey and Malia Politzer writing for ICIJ

The Washington Post

“Accusations against Latchford … have been a matter of legal record for nearly 10 years now,” said Tess Davis, a lawyer, archaeologist and the executive director of the Antiquities Coalition, an organization that campaigns against the trafficking of cultural artifacts. “Museum leaders have had more than enough time to do the right thing. Instead, there is deafening silence.” -Peter Whoriskey, Malia Politzer, Delphine Reuter and Spencer Woodman writing in The Washington

The Guardian

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