Fritz Grünbaum, a celebrated Austrian-Jewish cabaret performer and art collector, was imprisoned by the Nazis and later perished in the Dachau Concentration Camp. During his internment, Grünbaum's remarkable collection of artworks, including numerous works by Egon Schiele, was unlawfully seized.  For nearly two decades, his heirs have been engaged in a legal battle to reclaim these cultural treasures, more than 80 of which made their way into United States Museum's via galleries and collections in New York. 

This week's ruling follows on a broader pattern of Holocaust-era restitution in recent years.  Over the past two years, the New York District Attorney's Office in Manhattan has been successful at convincing museums and private collectors to voluntarily relinquish Schiele art works once held in Grünbaum’s collection after walking them through the sometimes complex but ultimately compelling evidence.  Those earlier institutions recognised the evidence presented, as well as the historical injustice and took action to right long-standing wrongs.

The Art Institute of Chicago took a different stance however.  Rather than accept the findings of provenance research and the investigative conclusions regarding the Nazi-era seizure, the museum opted to challenge the jurisdiction of the Manhattan District Attorney to to initiate a criminal proceeding, treating the museum’s Schiele as stolen property, in what the museum argued was a civil dispute with a good faith purchaser.  The DA’s office, however, viewed the work as stolen property under New York law—a stance the court ultimately upheld in Judge Drysdale’s critical court ruling.

The decision, reported this week in The New York Times, marks a pivotal moment not only for the Grünbaum family but for the broader field of Holocaust-era restitution. The ruling sends a clear message: museums and collectors cannot hide behind good faith acquisition when the underlying reality is the object is stolen property. 

This victory is the culmination of years of tireless advocacy and legal action initiated as far back as 2005. It reaffirms the legal and moral imperative to return artworks looted under persecution, particularly when the theft is linked to genocide. As the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office continues its work investigating and supporting the recovery of looted art, this case may set a powerful precedent for future restitution claims still pending in courts and museum storerooms around the world.

With this win, hope remains alive that other works from Grünbaum’s collection—still held by private collectors and public institutions—may eventually be returned to their rightful heirs. Justice, in this case, may have taken nearly a century, but it is a testament to the enduring power of memory, persistence, and the rule of law.

Dutch authorities continue to advance their inquiry into the high-profile burglary and theft that occurred on 25 January 2025 at the Drents Museum in Assen with an expanded suspect list that now includes seven individuals.  In the early morning hours of that day, a group of individuals accomplices set off explosives to force open a door to the museum and made off with four significant artefacts on loan from Romania: the Dacien golden helmet of Cotofenesti and three gold bangles.

Following the museum's theft, Dutch law enforcement launched an intensive investigation involving forensic analysis, surveillance footage review, and interagency cooperation.

The first breakthrough came on 29 January when three individuals from Heerhugowaard were taken into custody. The Dutch police publicly identified two of the suspects as Douglas Chesley Wendersteyt and Bernhard Zeeman, releasing both their names and photographs to the public. The third person arrested arrested was not named but is reported to be the partner of one of the suspects.

On 20 February, investigators arrested a fourth possible co-conspirator, a 26-year-old man from the nearby village of Obdam.  Around the same time, authorities announced they were actively seeking an additional suspect captured on CCTV footage wearing a Nike cap and glasses and visiting a hardware store in Assen shortly before the burglary.

The investigation continued into the spring, and on 5 April, a fifth potential accomplice—aged 36—was apprehended during a raid on a residence in Alkmaar, where the premises were thoroughly searched for evidence.

Yesterday, the list of suspects grew to seven, with two more individuals, a 20-year-old man and an 18-year-old man, both from Heerhugowaard, taken into custody. Authorities confirmed that one of them is the same individual previously seen in the CCTV footage from the hardware store.  Earlier in the day, the police had already searched a house in Opmeer and a business premises in Heerhugowaard.

According to the news site Europesays, of the seven, six suspects reportedly remain in custody, with the seventh released but still considered a suspect in the case.

Despite these arrests, the stolen Romanian artefacts remain missing. The ancient golden helmet and bracelets are considered significant cultural property, and their recovery remains a top priority with a reward for the golden tip that leads to their recovery being set at 250 thousand euros, an amount offered by the Dutch entrepreneur Alex van Breemen, who lives in Bucharest.

Dutch authorities continue to appeal to the public for information that may lead to the recovery of the stolen items. Anyone with relevant details is encouraged to contact investigators via the dedicated email: tips-assen@politie.nl.  Anonymous tips can also be submitted through Meld Misdaad Anoniem.

This case remains open, and further developments are expected as forensic analysis and interrogations continue. The investigation is being treated as a coordinated criminal operation, and authorities are examining links to broader organised networks.

Anyone with information related to the theft is urged to contact the Dutch police through their tip lines or via email at tips-assen@politie.nl. Anonymous tips can also be submitted through Meld Misdaad Anoniem.

In a coordinated operation on Monday, the Dimona Police and the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) uncovered a significant cache of antiquities during a search of a private residence in the southern Israeli city of Dimona. Approximately 200 ancient items were seized, including coins, arrowheads, intact pottery vessels, oil lamps, glass beads, pendants, and other cultural artifacts.

Preliminary assessments by the IAA indicate that the recovered items span a broad historical range—from the Iron Age (9th century BCE) to the 7th century CE, the period marking the rise of Arab Muslim expansion across the region.  The 40-year-old resident of the home, located in Dimona, approximately 30 kilometers southeast of Beersheba and 35 kilometers west of the Dead Sea, was detained for overnight questioning and could face charges of illegal possession of antiquities. 

In addition to the artefacts, police also recovered two metal detectors, a large amount of ammunition, and various types of "airsoft" weapons.  Bear in mind that airsoft guns are replica firearms that use compressed air, at a low velocity, to propel small plastic pellets (typically 6mm BBs) originally designed for use in simulated combat games.  While not considered firearms in most jurisdictions, airsoft guns and similar items have been imported to Israel as toys, and later converted by changing the barrel and the internal mechanism to allow it to hold live rounds. These “converted weapons” are less powerful (and cheaper) than traditionally manufactured firearms, but they can easily still harm and even kill people,

By May 2022, Israel's "Airsoft" Law(Amendment No. 23), 2022, past its first reading in the Knesset, following the Ministry of Public Security's request to regulate the sphere of dangerous "toys", highlighting a recorded 195% increase since the beginning of 2018 in seizing of Airsoft guns that have been modified and converted into makeshift weapons which could make their way into the hands of terrorists and crime organisations.

The law proposed stipulated that any activity involving the manufacture, import, export, storage, transportation and trading in replica firearms will require a license, similar to a firearms license and the use, possession and carrying of these guns is to  occur in shooting clubs only, which will be issued a license by the Firearm Licensing Department.  That bill also included a penal clause of three to five years of imprisonment for execution of various types of modifications to replica firearms.  

Whether or not the airsoft weapons in this instance had been modified is not clear in the varying Israeli news reports. What is known is that in addition to the antiquities, cash in excess of NIS 150,000 (+/-€35,000) was also recovered. 

As mentioned in our blog post yesterday, on 11 April 2025, the UK's High Court ruled in favour of Sheikh Hamad Bin Abdullah Al-Thani against Phoenix Ancient Art, Ali and Hicham Aboutaam and the conveniently retired Swiss antiquities dealer Roland Ansermet, concluding that the New York and Swiss based gallery had engaged in fraud, dishonesty and fraudulent misrepresentation in relation to the Qatari royal's claim. But just who is Roland C. Ansermet, AKA Charles Roland Ansermet? And why is his role important when exploring artefact sales transactions, especially those which have involved the Aboutaam brothers and their well known antiquities dealership?

As early as 2002, an acquisition record for a 3000-2800 BCE Cycladic kandila at the Michael C. Carlos Museum traces the piece to Ansermet's Neuchâtel-based art collection.  This Greek marble storage jar was purchased by the MCCM via Christoph F. Leon, another extremely problematic Swiss-based antiquities dealer who sold (among other suspect pieces) the looted golden Greek funerary wreath to the J. Paul Getty Museum in 1993 for $1.1 million and who brokered the sale of  twenty-one pieces of looted Apulian pottery stolen from a single grave that has recently been restituted to Italy from the Altes Museum in Berlin.

Left: Photo from the Gianfranco Becchina archive  Right: Accession Photo of the Pithos in the Michael C. Carlos Museum

A year later, in 2003, the same museum documents Ansermet's connection to the Aboutaam family.  That year, Jasper Gaunt, then curator of Greek and Roman art at the Michael C. Carlos Museum, corresponded directly with Ansermet in advance of the Georgia museum's purchase of a Greek Archaic period Pithos.  The museum had been offered the artefact for purchase consideration by the Aboutaams via Phoenix Ancient Art.

Ansermet informed Gaunt that the pithos was formerly in the collection of his uncle, Professor Adolphe Goumaz of Lausanne, Switzerland, from 1960 before passing to him prior to its later circulation via the Aboutaams.  The piece was ultimately acquired by the Michael C. Carlos Museum in 2004, and assigned accession no: 2004.2.1.  A photograph of this artefact however, also appears in the business records of problematic antiquities dealer Gianfranco Becchina, a name not mentioned in the collection history presented by Ansermet or the Aboutaams, who omit (or didn't know) that the antiquity had been in circulation to or from the Sicilian owner of Palladion Antike Kunst.   

While the Michael C. Carlos Museum ultimately didn't move to restitute the Pithos from its collection based on the lone Becchina photograph, the object demonstrates a decades-long business relationship between Ansermet and the Aboutaams. 

One year later, in 2005, an Oil Lamp with Ansermet and Phoenix Ancient Art provenance was acquired by the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.  It was given accession number 2005.351.A-.C, 

Another suspect artefact traceable to Ansermet, a 3rd century CE Roman marble portrait head of the Emperor Gallienus, was consigned and ultimately sold during Christie's London Antiquities auction 1561 held on 1 October 2014.   Who the consigner was, or who the unfortunate purchaser is, has not been established through open source research.

During the Operation Achei, conducted on the orders of the investigating judge of Crotone and carried out by the Carabinieri of the Cultural Heritage Protection Command investigating an international network of antiquities traffickers, a wire tap recorded a conversation which took place on 19 February 2018, between illicit antiquities middleman Alfiero Angelucci (who will be charged later in Italy) and Roland Ansermet, who Italian investigators defined as a “character resident in Switzerland, involved in various cases related to the international trafficking of archaeological finds”.   The pair's telephone call discusses legal problems related to an ongoing Swiss investigation and recorded Ansermet boldly relaying to Angelucci: “But you don’t know what I have, the largest Etruscan collection in the world.  I showed it to them. It’s sitting in England waiting for the client and I already have the client. This one is Russian and they’ve gone crazy”.

Fast forward to two days before Sheikh Hamad Bin Abdulla al Thani accused Phoenix Ancient Art of breach of contract and negligent misrepresentation in London and Ansermet's name can again be linked to the Aboutaams, in the Beierwaltes; Aboutaam v. L’Office fédérale de la culture de la Confederation Suisse legal proceedings, which was argued on 20 October 2020, in relation to the then ongoing Swiss investigation into Ali Aboutaam's suspect business dealings. 

Ansermet's activities in conjunction with Ali Aboutaam are also detailed in records filed with the Police Court in Geneva dating to 20 July 2022 in relation to Swiss Indictment P/2949/2017 wherein Swiss prosecutors laid out that:

for the purpose of providing cultural goods, within the meaning of article 2 of the law on the transfer of cultural goods (LTBC), with a pedigree aimed at dispelling suspicions of illicit provenance and/or at facilitating their customs transfer with a view to their sale on the art market through Phoenix Ancient Art SA, Tanis Antiquities Ltd and Inanna Art Services SA, i.e. companies controlled by Ali ABOU TAAM,

Ali Aboutaam marketed a series of objects including: 

In relation to these objects, Ansermet's name singularly, or Ansermet, alongside other named individuals, appears and the Swiss prosecutors contended the paperwork accompanying these pieces contained false histories or false invoices.  In January 2023, in this case, Ali Aboutaam was given an 18-month suspended jail sentence and ordered to pay roughly $490,000 (CHF450,000) in legal costs. 

In relation to the Al Thani case, Ansermet, gave evidence that he bought the suspect Byzantine chalcedony statuette of Nike, whose authenticity is disputed, in 1982 and sold it to Phoenix's agent, Tanis Antiquities Ltd.  The Aboutaams in turn sold it to the Qatari collector for $2.2 million.

In light of the substantial number of antiquities purportedly held by the aforementioned, now nearly 85 year old Swiss national, as per his wire-tapped conversation, and his documented history of transactional engagement with problematic ancient art dealers, including Fiorella Cottier-Angeli, Christoph F. Leon, Alfiero Angelucci, and the Aboutaam family—it is recommended that all accompanying documentation, including but not limited to provenance records or attestations of  ownership, be subjected to rigorous due diligence procedures.  Furthermore, any future acquisitions or transactions involving objects linked to Mr. Ansermet should be presumed potentially irregular pending comprehensive and independent verification of their lawful origin and transfer.

In closing, Caveat emptor.

By:  Lynda Albertson

I. Introduction

This blog report outlines the legal proceedings and final judgment in the case of Qatar Investment and Projects Development Holding Company & Anor v. Phoenix Ancient Art SA & Ors, culminating in a decision by the England and Wales High Court (King's Bench Division) in April 2025. The case centers on allegations of fraud and misrepresentation concerning the sale of antiquities to Sheikh Hamad Bin Abdullah Al-Thani by Phoenix Ancient Art, based in New York and Geneva.

II. Background

Between 2013 and 2014 Sheikh Hamad Bin Abdullah Al-Thani, through Qatar Investment and Projects Development Holding Company (QIPCO), acquired several antiquities from Phoenix Ancient Art, including:

• A chalcedony statuette of Nike, purchased for $2.2 million.

• A marble head of Alexander the Great as Herakles, purchased for $3 million.

al Thani raised concerns in early 2018 about the authenticity of the Nike statue after receiving a report claiming that microscopic inspection detected modern machine tool markings and machine polishing inconsistent with ancient craftsmanship.

III. Legal Proceedings

• Initial Claims and Limitations: In his initial complaint filed on 22 October 2020 with the high court of London, Sheikh Hamad Bin Abdulla al Thani, represented by the lawyers Pinsent Masons, accused Phoenix Ancient Art of breach of contract and/or negligent misrepresentation on the part of the gallery as the vendor of the $2.2 million Byzantine statuette of Nike whose authenticity is disputed.  Roland Ansermet was also named in the 22 October 2020 UK lawsuit.  In their response, the defendants contested the claims, arguing also that they were time-barred under the Limitation Act 1980. The High Court initially sided with the defendants 27 July 2021 ruling that despite issues related to the Covid 19 pandemic,  the complainant had failed to serve his complaint on Phoenix Ancient Art within the reasonable time limit.  In April 2022 the UK Court of Appeal upheld this decision, emphasising procedural adherence over pandemic-related delays.

• New Action and Allegations: On 8 September 2023, Sheikh Hamad Bin Abdulla al Thani and QIPCO file a new claim, asserting fraud, fraudulent misrepresentation, and unlawful means conspiracy. The court permitted these claims to proceed, determining they were not clearly time-barred and did not constitute an abuse of process.

• Summary Judgment: On 4 June 2024, the High Court granted summary judgment in favour of QIPCO, citing Phoenix Ancient Art's failure to disclose critical documents and evidence supporting allegations of fraud and misrepresentation.

IV. Final Judgment and Remedies

On 11 April 2025, the High Court ruled in favour of Sheikh Hamad Bin Abdullah Al-Thani, issuing a summary judgment pursuant to CPR 24.3 against Phoenix Ancient Art, Ali and Hicham Aboutaam, and the retired Swiss antiques dealer, Roland Ansermet concluding that Phoenix Ancient Art had engaged in fraud, dishonesty and fraudulent misrepresentation in relation to al Thani's claim. The court imposed a worldwide asset freeze of $10 million against Phoenix Ancient Art to secure potential damages and costs.

V. Implications

This case underscores the importance of due diligence and transparency in the art and antiquities market.  It highlights the legal responsibilities of dealers to provide accurate provenance information and the potential consequences of misrepresentation. The judgment serves as a precedent for future disputes involving the authenticity of cultural property.

References

• Qatar Investment and Projects Development Holding Co & Anor v. Phoenix Ancient Art SA & Ors [2024] EWHC 1331 (KB)

• Qatar Investment and Project Development Holding Company & Anor v. Phoenix Ancient Art SA [2022] EWCA Civ 422

• "Qatari royal wins court ruling over provenance of £4m antiquities," The Times, April 2025.

When violence first broke out in April 2023 between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), Khartoum became an epicenter of combat. Within days, RSF units occupied large swaths of the city, including key government buildings, residential neighbourhoods, and the area surrounding the Sudan National Museum. 

The museum itself fell within contested territory, with ongoing shelling and street battles posing severe risk and making its interior impossible to secure.  Throughout the months that followed, reports of looting and damage to Khartoum’s infrastructure and the museum were reported, with its museum staff and heritage experts displaced under the strain of war, making it nearly impossible to assess the damage while the the city remained under siege. 

It wasn’t until early 2025—after a sustained counteroffensive by the SAF and international diplomatic pressure—that much of central Khartoum, including the museum district, was recaptured. By then, however, the damage to Sudan's important cultural landmarks had already been done.

A Repository of Nubian Glory

The Sudan National Museum was established in 1971 and housed over 50,000 years of human history. Its galleries showcased everything from prehistoric stone tools and ancient Christian frescoes to monumental statues and pharaonic temples rescued from the waters of Lake Nasser during the UNESCO Nubia Campaign of the 1960s. The museum's collection includes artifacts from the Kingdom of Kush, the Kerma civilisation, and the Christian kingdoms of Nubia, shedding light on cultures often overshadowed by their northern neighbours in Egypt.

What made the museum especially significant was not just the artefacts it held, but the unique narrative it wove—a story of African ingenuity, political power, and religious transformation that challenged long-standing historical biases and centered Sudan within the broader tapestry of global heritage which transcended its modern day, and often contested borders.

Cultural Institutions in the Crossfire

Since the outbreak of conflict, the museum—like many institutions in the country—suffered from a lack of security, interrupted funding, and the physical dangers posed by armed clashes waged in and around it.  By early 2024, satellite images and reports from heritage professionals warned of structural damage to the museum's building and the increasing vulnerability of its collections to looting and environmental degradation.  

As the war raged on, nearly all archaeological research was suspended in the country and most conservation projects ceased. 

In September 2004, two hundred Sudanese researchers called on South Sudan President Salva Kiir Mayardit to help recover valuable artefacts believed to have been looted from the National Museum in Khartoum, and thought by some to have been routed through South Sudan as a transit country for resale on the black market. 

Buhen temple at the grounds of Sudan National Museum in Khartoum before conflict

Current Situation

The first awful photos ARCA has seen of the devastated Sudan National Museum show one small glimmer of hope that at least the Buhen Dynasty temple, on the grounds of the museum, appears to be mostly intact.  Built by Hatshepsut, daughter of Thutmose I (1473-1458 BCE), the temple is dedicated to Horus and once stood at the fortress of Buhan.  It was moved to Khartoum, when its find spot was covered by the resulting Lake Nasser, created by the Aswan Dam project in 1964.

The damage inside the museum and in its labs is more painful and the destruction and looting of pieces in the collection are still under assessment.  The Director of Museums at the National Corporation for Antiquities and Chair of the Sudanese Antiquities Repatriation Committee, Ikhlas Abdel Latif has stated that all the artefacts from the Gold Room, one of the rarest museum collections from the Kushite Empire, were systematically stolen, and many of the museum's other artefacts were also destroyed.

Outside, unexploded projectiles can be found embedded in the stone and will need to be removed carefully by explosive experts. 

In the Aftermath

The current situation in Sudan is critical, and serves as a painful reminder of the fragility of cultural heritage during times of conflict, as well as the fact that the human impact of devastation and war often supersedes and takes priority over heritage impact.  

That said, the loss of collections within the Sudan National Museum and its other heritage institutions and archaeological sites should not be under-recognised. The museum did more than simply display artefacts—it anchored identity, inspired pride, and offered future generations a connection to their roots. 

Losses such as those being recorded now, are and will continue to be a national tragedy, as well as a global one, long after the conflict subsides.

King Atlanersa (also Atlanarsa), Kushite ruler of the Napatan kingdom of Nubia (Reign c. 653–643 BCE)

In the meantime, digital preservation efforts, diaspora scholarship, and international partnerships are called upon to help safeguard what could not be protected from afar. The world must not turn away. The ruins of Nubia tell a story that spans millennia and whether or not that story continues depends not just on the past—but on how we choose to protect it today.

The Amelia Conference: 

The Association for Research into Crimes against Art (ARCA) is pleased to announce that registration is now open for its 13th Annual Interdisciplinary Art Crime Conference, taking place from June 21–22, 2025 in the historic town of Amelia, Italy. As the seat of ARCA’s renowned Postgraduate Certificate Programmes in Art Crime and Cultural Heritage Protection, Amelia offers the ideal setting for the Association's annual thought-provoking event.

This year’s conference will kick off with a welcome cocktail on the evening of Friday, June 20, providing an opportunity for early networking among speakers and attendees. The main program will span two full days of panels and presentations on Saturday and Sunday, June 21–22, hosted at the Collegio Boccarini, adjacent to the Museo Civico Archeologico e Pinacoteca Edilberto Rosa in the heart of Amelia’s centro storico.

The Amelia Conference continues ARCA’s longstanding commitment to fostering critical dialogue and cross-disciplinary collaboration on pressing issues related to art crime, cultural heritage protection, and the illicit trafficking of cultural property. This annual gathering brings together experts from international organisations, universities, law enforcement, academia, cultural institutions, and the art market to explore practical solutions and forward-thinking strategies to better safeguard our shared cultural heritage.

Call for Presenters - Extended Deadline:

Due to a few cancellations, we are still accepting abstract submissions for the 2025 conference. The extended deadline for proposals is April 15, 2025.

Conference sessions are designed to reflect the growing complexity of art and heritage crime and the expanding range of disciplines engaging with these challenges. This year’s panels will feature 75- to 90-minute sessions, each comprising 15–20 minute presentations by invited speakers, with ample time for Q&A and moderated discussion. Presenters are encouraged to focus on key themes or case studies relevant to current challenges in art crime, with the aim of encouraging thoughtful—not combative—dialogue among peers. Some sessions may also include panel-style debate or showcase diverse perspectives on a given topic.

Whether you are an academic, a museum professional, a law enforcement officer, or a member of the private sector working to protect cultural property, we invite you to attend and share your insights and contribute to this important conversation.

Registration:

To register for the 2025 Amelia Conference, please visit our Eventbrite registration page. Early registration is encouraged, as lodging in and around Amelia is limited and this event regularly reaches capacity.

For more information about the conference, to submit an abstract, or accommodation suggestions, please contact us at:

italy.conference (at) artcrimeresearch.org

Established by the German Lost Art Foundation in 2019, the day aims to shine a spotlight on the crucial but often behind-the-scenes work of provenance researchers. Their mission? To investigate the ownership history of artworks and artefacts, ensuring that institutions are stewards of culture—not of looted or illicitly traded cultural property.

Provenance research is about more than just filling in the blanks of a museum label. It involves meticulous detective work: poring through archives, old photographs, dealer records, shipping documents, and personal correspondence to reconstruct an object’s journey through time. In some cases, that journey reveals ties to war-time looting, colonial exploitation, illicit excavations, or forced sales under duress.

The International Day of Provenance Research highlights not only the successes of this field—such as the repatriation of artworks to the heirs of Holocaust victims or the return of sacred objects to Indigenous communities—but also the ethical questions that institutions must confront who house suspect material in  their collections. Highlighting this day encourages transparency, collaboration, and public dialogue around the issues of cultural heritage and ownership.

From seminars and exhibitions to digital campaigns and published reports, organizations worldwide use this day to share discoveries, raise awareness, and promote best practices in provenance research. It serves as a reminder that the objects we admire in galleries and museums carry stories—sometimes uncomfortable ones—that deserve to be told with honesty and integrity.

As calls for restitution and ethical collecting grow louder, the work of provenance researchers has never been more vital. On this International Day of Provenance Research, ARCA honours their dedication and reaffirms our commitment to historical justice, cultural respect, and the truth behind every art work and artefact.

Every work of art tells a story.  It is time to listen. 

1992 photo of Leonardo Patterson with Pope John Paul II

This morning Arthur Brand posted that Leonardo Augustus Patterson, euphemistically known as a dealer and collector of ancient art, but long accused of trafficking looted pre-Columbian artefacts, has died.  His passing, on 11 February in Bautzen, Germany, at the age of 82, marks the end of a decades-long saga of intrigue, deception, and international investigations conducted by the F.B.I., and the National police in Mexico, Spain, Peru, Guatamala and Germany, all of which centred around his circulation and sale of illicit ancient artefacts as well as forgeries.

Born in Costa Rica to Jamaican parents in 1942, Patterson rose to prominence in the booming, Janus-faced antiquities market of the 1960s and 1970s.  Over the years, he developed a reputation as both a knowledgable connoisseur as well as a trafficker, and occasional dealer in forgeries, who amassed an inventory of ancient artefacts worth millions and maintained homes in New York, Mexico city, and Munch.  Many of the pieces he handled are believed to have been plundered from sites in Costa Rica, El Salvador, Mexico, Guatemala, and Peru, all countries rich in archaeological histories.  

During the 1960s and 1970s, Mesoamerican archaeological sites were subjected to rampant looting, driven in part by an increasingly insatiable global demand for Pre-Columbian material.  In Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, and Belize, ancient Maya, Olmec, and Aztec sites were raided by looters, often referred to as huaqueros who left behind a path of damage or devastation in their wake. 

These individuals, working in well-funded and well-connected trafficking networks, unearthed jade masks, ceramic figurines, jewellery, carved stelae, and codices, stripping important archaeological sites of invaluable movable cultural heritage.  With the rise of private collectors and museum acquisitions in Europe and the United States during this period, many of these black market artefacts ended up in prestigious collections as well as in institutions, purchased through dealers such as Patterson, or those who bought directly from him.

Governments in Mesoamerica responded to their losses with stricter cultural patrimony laws.  Yet ,despite increased legislation, enforcement remained inconsistent.  This in turn allowed the looting to persist, and further resulted in damaging the historical record of what we know and can document about the sites and customs of these ancient civilisations.

Patterson’s dealings in cultural property, on and over the edge of legality, placed him at the centre of legal controversies.  

In his first overt brush with the law, on 21 May 1984, the FBI charged Patterson federally with wire fraud for trying to sell a fake Mayan fresco to an art dealer in Boston.  In that instance he pleaded no contest, contending that he was set up by FBI officers, who he claimed held had a vendetta against him.  Despite the felony conviction, he was sentenced lightly, to probation. 

A year later, and while still on probation for his earlier conviction, Patterson was arrested upon arrival at the Dallas-Fort Worth airport for illegally importing a 650 and 850 CE, pre-Columbian ceramic figure and 36 sea turtle eggs, a violation of the Endangered Species Convention.  In that case, the flamboyant merchant claimed that the pre-Columbian artwork was a newly made souvenir, but openly admitted he planned to consume the eggs as part of his health regimen, even describing how he would eat them.  In his own defense, he stating that he thought he only had to declare the endangered turtle eggs when he arrived at his final destination.  

Leonardo Patterson in his apartment in Munich.

By the 1990s, Patterson had moved away from his repeated US headaches to Europe, relocating to Munich, where he began holding large exhibitions and making sales in France, Germany, and Spain.  There, he befriended and sold ancient art works to a large circle of wealthy collectors and by 1995, was named Costa Rica's cultural attache to the U.N.  Interviewed by the newspaper, Der Spiegel, journalists recorded that at the highest point in his selling career, the extravagant dealer had been chauffeured around the city in a blue Rolls Royce and sponsored his own polo team, which included four players and 12 horses.

In 1995, this also became complicated in Europe, when Patterson's activities were linked publicly in the New York Times to Val Edwards, a successful, if not controversial smuggler.  Edwards told journalists that over the course of a decade he had covertly brought 1000 museum-quality artefacts into the United States which had been plundered from various sites in Guatemala and Mexico.   

With pre-Columbian artworks fetching record prices and while the United States Customs Service officials concentrated on the drug trade, Edwards claimed that he got away with smuggling by posing as a businessman, entering the United States with restaurant equipment and a ready-made alibi that the objects he possessed were cheap tourist reproductions, to be used to decorate a Mexican restaurant he planned to open.  In his ten years of smuggling, Edwards was never arrested, and his bags were only searched once, for drugs. 

Not long after he this link to Edwards was made public, Patterson's honorary role with the UN was revoked.

One of the most important pieces tied to Patterson's illicit activities is this three-foot-wide Mochica headdress of a tentacled zoomorphic sea god.  In was looted from a Moche funerary site in the Jequetepeque valley in northern Peru during a wave of clandestine excavations following the discovery of the famous lord of Sipán tomb.  The artefact had been stolen by a man named Ernil Bernal, who led a band of huaqueros who tunnelled into one of the pyramids located at Huaca Rajada.  Bernal in turn sold the piece to a Peruvian collector named Raul Apesteguia, who later sold the extremely rare artefact to Patterson. 

On 26 January 1996 Apesteguía was robbed, and found beaten to death in his home. Authorities in Peru believe that the collector died at the hands of an antiquities trafficking mob with whom he had been associated.  Though never charged, Patterson's name surfaced as a person of interest in connection to this murder investigation, as objects associated with Apesteguía, including this magnificent gold piece, were identified in circulation with Patterson.

While it is not possible to list all of Patterson's antics in one blog post, here are a few.

In 1997 Patterson staged an exhibition at the Museo do Pobo Galego in Santiago de Compostela in northwestern Spain, sponsored by the Galicia regional government.  During this event, several experts voiced concerns that some of the artefacts might be forgeries, including an Olmec throne described as made of fired clay, something the Olmecs weren't known for. Patterson filed a $63 million defamation lawsuit against the dissenting experts, only to later withdrew his charges.

Peruvian archaeologist Walter Alva, who reviewed a copy of Patterson's museum exhibition catalog, identified more than 250 ancient Peruvian pieces, mostly from tombs raided in the late 1980s, one of which was the gold Peruvian Mochica headdress mentioned earlier. 

In 2004, after receiving a tip, customs officials in Germany targeted an air freight delivery at Frankfort Airport containing archeological artefacts from Mexico and simply waited until Patterson's daughter showed up.  That same year, and based on the contents of Patterson's 1997 exhibit catalogue for the Santiago de Compostela exhibition, and identifications from archaeological experts, Peru issued an arrest warrant for the dealer.

In 2006, and acting on information from Michel van Rijn and Arthur Brand, London's Metropolitan Police successfully recovered the Mochica headdress of a tentacled zoomorphic sea god when Van Rijn posed as a buyer during a visit to the London office of Leonardo Patterson's lawyer. That piece was returned to Peru later that summer. 

Later that same year, on 30 October 2006, Peruvian commander George Gamarra Romero received a confidential email inbox in which Spanish colleagues had notified him that Spanish authorities had a tip that more than a thousand of pieces tied to Patterson were being stored in a moving warehouse in Galicia.  Executing a search warrant in early 2007, police documented rare Mayan and Aztec pieces, Incan gold, and a variety of other pre-Columbian relics were suspected to have been illegally obtained.  As part of this police investigation, and based on a request from Peru, Spain seized 45 Peruvian cultural objects, many of which were determined to have been looted from Sipán and La Mina.

But before Spanish police could investigate the remaining pieces further, Patterson had the rest of the items moved to Munich in March 2007.  Sparking further questions, Patterson disputed the sequester in Spain and claimed that all of the artefacts were part of a loan from German millionaire Anton Roeckl.

As the international cases progressed, German authorities seized more than 1,000 Aztec, Maya, Olmec and Inca antiquities from Patterson in April 2008.  The pieces were packed into more than a hundred crates held in a Munich warehouse.

In September 2011 Patterson was arrested at the Mexico City international airport while traveling to his native Costa Rica based on an Interpol red notice issued by Guatemala and a location order issued in Mexico by the Specialized Unit for Investigation of Crimes against the Environment and Provided for in Special Laws of the PGR, for the alleged crime of theft of archaeological goods and pieces.   In December 2012, a criminal court in Santiago de Compostela put the dealer on trial for violating export regulations relating to cultural artefacts when he moved his collection to Munich.  Unfortunately, Patterson wasn't present at the trial, as a German doctor had issued him a certificate of poor health saying that he was unable to travel. 

Leonard Patterson during the trial in Spain.

On 28th March 2013, at yet another airport, Patterson is again arrested, this time at the Adolfo Suárez Madrid–Barajas Airport in Madrid on the bases of Interpol notices from Guatemala and Peru. While awaiting a decision on extradition to Latin America, he was housed at the Madrid V Penitentiary Center, Soto del Real.

Wanted since 2008, Guatemala's Office of the Public Prosecutor for Crimes against Cultural Heritage requested Patterson's extradition for the crimes of illicit export of cultural property and the illegal possession of 269 looted objects purportedly part of the larger "Patterson Collection" a batch of 1,800 archaeological objects from countries such as Mexico, Guatemala and Peru, which he's exhibited in Santiago de Compostela.  But as the requests progressed, Patterson was released from custody for health reasons 10 months after his arrest in January 2014. Although he had been ordered to remain in Spain, he immediately left for Munich.

Back in Germany,  he racked up another charge, for selling a 10 percent share of an allegedly fake Olmec head (the Olmec were an ancient civilization in Mexico) to a businessman from nearby Starnberg for €85,000.  In that case the Court in Munich found him guilty of "deceptively selling a piece of recent manufacture as an archaeological artefact of Mexican origin to a German citizen" and "possessing looted artefacts."  

Given his advancing age, as is too often the case with elderly lifetime traffickers, Patterson was sentenced in Germany to probation, plus home confinement for three years, ordered to return two wooden Olmec head carvings to Mexico and fined approximately $40,000.  Arthur Brand, a witness in that trial, testified that Patterson had told him that the returned pieces had been taken by a tomb raider from an archaeological dig in El Manatí, Mexico, a sacred site of the Olmec people. 

In his 2016 interview with Der Speigel, Patterson openly elaborated on his business model, and admitted to working with Mexican intermediaries who travelled to Munich on a regular basis. "They worked together with the illegal excavators," he stated. "Their focus was on fresh goods, primarily because of the prices. They had to know where digging was currently going on. They always got it at the place where it was found. They knew the people in the villages."

Patterson’s death leaves many questions unanswered about the final fate of the thousands of artefacts he once controlled.  While some have been returned to their countries of origin, many others remain in legal limbo, or in the hands of private collectors, some of whom are unaware of—or indifferent to—their questionable provenance.

A Paris warehouse of Patterson's merchandise.

Noting his death today, some say, why not let the dead rest? I myself disagree, as this man certainly didn't.

By Lynda Albertson