In a significant victory in the fight against illicit antiquities trafficking, seventeen Egyptian artefacts have been formally returned to the Government of the Arab Republic of Egypt in a handover held at the Australian Parliament House in Canberra on 26 November 2025, where officials marked the return as a milestone for cultural property protection.   Ambassador Nabil Habashi, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, presided over the ceremony, receiving the voluntarily repatriated artefacts from an Australian citizen in the city of Melbourne, in coordination with the Australian side.   Additionally, Egypt and Australia signed the documents for the return of 17 rare Pharaonic artefacts to Egypt.

As Per MP Tony Burk, "most of the objects were purchased online and imported into Australia from the United States of America on separate occasions. A number were detected during a 2019 global operation to combat cultural property trafficking led by INTERPOL and the World Customs Organisation." 

Left Image: Artemis Auction sale photo Right Image:  Restituted cartonnage ensemble

The child's cartonnage ensemble, used for adorning a mummified body, is interesting as it was put up for auction online by Teresa and Bob Dodge at Artemis Fine Arts auction house in Louisville, Colorado where it reportedly sold for $10,000 USD on 13 February 2020.  

The provenance listed for the auction of this artefact was listed as:

Private J.H. collection, Beaverton, Oregon, USA; ex-Relics of the Nile, Lexington, Kentucky; ex-private S.O. Simonian collection, Switzerland, acquired in Egypt and transported to Switzerland in 1972, where they have been held in storage since 2010

J.H. is Jeff Hallen, a part-time collector-dealer in Beaverton, Oregon who, according to his Facebook profile was once affiliated with Yanto Alexander Fine Art.  He has also stated in a social media group that he was selling his collection through Artemis in Colorado.   Relics of the Nile, is a virtual dealer operated by Mike Sigler who in turn has purchased and circulated ancient artefacts which have passed through the hands of at least one suspect dealer operating in Dubai.

One should also note that this online sale took place in 2020, the year after Serop Simonian's name was scandalously linked as the alleged trafficker of the Gold Coffin of Nedjemankh, seized by the D.A.’s Office in Manhattan and HSI New York from the Metropolitan Museum of Art as well as other problematic pieces.  Given the high visibility of that scandal, it is reasonable to question what level of due diligence, if any, was conducted by Dodge when Artemis purchased, or accepted, the cartonnage on consignment, before subsequently auctioning the suspect artefacts onward to the  collector in Melbourne.

Why This Matters for the Global Fight Against Cultural Heritage Crime

The repatriation of these objects highlights a few critical truths for the broader field of cultural heritage protection:

It demonstrates that trafficked artefacts can surface and travel anywhere in the world, even in countries far removed from their origin, and that the illicit trade in cultural property often spans multiple continents, from excavation zones in post-conflict source countries, through transit countries, and on to primary and secondary market countries changing hands multiple times in sales and exports before arriving to private collectors, 

Laws like Australia’s Protection of Movable Cultural Heritage Act, combined with effective enforcement at borders and cooperation between national authorities, is what makes a real difference in recovering cultural property for source nations. And restitution is more than a symbolic act, it allows communities to reclaim part of their collective heritage.  For organisations like Association for Research into Crimes against Art (ARCA), this case serves as a concrete reminder that global vigilance, cross-border collaboration, and robust legal frameworks are essential if we are to put even a small dent in the tide of illicit heritage trafficking.

As we reflect on this satisfactory outcome, we should ask ourselves: how many more objects remain untraced, circulating anonymously through auction houses, private collections, or illicit networks? And if I found it this easy to trace the provenance of just one of these restituted objects, why is it that dealers and auction houses continye to walk around with one eye closed for the sake of a sale? 

By:  Lynda Albertson

Egyptian authorities report the seizure of 577 artefacts in the Minya governorate in Upper Egypt, spanning the Middle Kingdom, Late Period, and Greco-Roman eras of ancient Egyptian history. 

The operation was conducted by the General Administration of Tourism and Antiquities Investigations, coordinated with the Public Security Sector and the Criminal Investigation Department, under the oversight of senior law enforcement officers Major General Mohamed Ragab and Major General Mohamed Zein. As a result of this investigation, a search warrant was executed not far from Lotus University at the residence of Islam A.M., an appliance dealer.  This resulted in the recovery of this large grouping of artefacts ,as well as the arrest of their intended seller, whose name was not given in full.

The ancient objects seized include this decorated 60-centimeter painted and gessoed wooden statue of a woman carrying offerings on her head, a cylindrical wooden image of Bes, the fertility god, and a basalt statue of Horus, missing its head from ancient erosion. 

Other notable objects include a painted pottery statue, and a green stone carving depicting four women.  Wood and faience ushabti figures suggest that at least some of the artefacts were looted from funerary contexts. 

In addition to these, 503 silver and bronze coins, were discovered, pointing to a diverse cache of both ritual and utilitarian items. 

According to Egyptian news sites, preliminary evaluation by antiquities inspectors confirm the authenticity of the artefacts seized as well as their protection under Egypt’s Antiquities Protection Law No. 117 of 1983. 

Like many such cases, the looter's intent was to sell the objects on the black market, where demand for Egyptian antiquities internationally remains high, forcing looters to plunder remote locations or utilise creative means to avoid having their illicit excavation activities detected.

In 2024 residents of Minya Governorate, especially those who bury their contemporary loved ones in the cemeteries in Zawiyat Sultan, Al-Matahira, and the Cairo-Assiut Desert Road, complained to the authorities that thieves were stealing the metal doors of tombs and that graves were being broken into.  It was discovered that gaining access to these modern internment spaces allowed looters to dig deep holes undetected in search of antiquities. 

The richness of the Minya Governorate is well known. In April 2017, Nedjemankh’s famous golden coffin flew to New York on American Airlines after it was looted from the Minya region in October 2011. 

In 2016, A'srāwy Kāmel Jād, a site guard was shot dead by looters, while a second watchman, Ali Khalaf Shāker, who was also on duty was gravely wounded and succumbed to his injuries later.  The pair had been on duty protecting Deir el-Bersha an archaeological site located on the east bank of the Nile, south of Hermopolis, which is part of the same governorate. 

For those thinking of taking up looting as a hobby, it should be remembered that Article 41 of Egypt's antiquities law stipulates that anyone who smuggles an antiquity out of the country or participates in smuggling it shall be punished by hard labor and a fine of no less than 5,000 Egyptian pounds and no more than 50,000 Egyptian pounds. Article 42 stipulates that anyone who steals or conceals an antiquity or part of an antiquity owned by a state shall be punished by imprisonment for a period of no less than 5 years.

Ashraf Omar Eldarir has recieved a six month prison sentence in US Federal court. 

ARCA has written a lot about Eldarir, a naturalised U.S. citizen from Brooklyn.   The first time was back in 2022 after he was indicted in the United States District Court, Eastern District of New York, on two counts of smuggling, under Title 18 U.S. Code § 545, 2 and 3551 et seq. after he flew into John F. Kennedy International Airport on from an international flight from Egypt with three suitcases filled from top to bottom with illicit antiquities wrapped in protective packaging.

In our second article we published an open source list of many of the Egyptian artefacts actively in circulation on the US and European markets which were traceable to Eldarir, reminding buyers that Caveat Emptor, if the name on the collecting history of their Egyptian artefacts included any of these names or combinations of stories they were likely to be looted.

⇏ Ashraf Omar Eldarir (see our earlier post today).

⇏ Anything with any spelling that says something like ex-private Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir collection; ex-Salahaddin Sirmali collection.

⇏ Anything with "formerly Collection Salah al-Din Sarmali Bey. Acquired by Izz al-Din Tah al-Darir Bey in Egypt.

In our third story, we examined how the insatiable U.S. demand for Egyptian antiquities between 2012 until 2020, and the ease with which illicit pieces could be laundered into the licit market and resold, often for substantial sums—created fertile ground for smugglers like Mr. Eldarir.  We also expanded our growing list of his identifiable imports and published an example of one of his forged provenance letters, and raised the obvious elephant-in-the-room question: catching one man with 590 artefacts in his suitcases is one thing, but what about the 'don’t ask, don’t tell' dealers and auction houses who eagerly absorbed his material into the supply chain? Eldarir’s scheme relied on fabricated attestation letters and never once produced an export license or verifiable proof of ownership, yet the ancient art market had welcomed his goods all the same.

In February 2025 we reported that after a prolonged federal court case, Eldarir had finally elected to do what most federally charged individuals tend to (eventually) do.  Knowing he stood a snowball's chance in hell of being found not guilty, the former doctor-turned-smuggler pleaded out, admitting that he had smuggled ancient Egyptian artefacts into the United States over a series of trips to and from his home country.  In theory, for his role in these affairs, US sentencing guidelines estimated that he could serve as many as three to five years behind bars and might even face denaturalisation, which could send him back to the very country that he so prolifically robbed.

ARCA continued to ask what happened to these two high value pieces sold through Christie's to a dealer in Switzerland. 

One was this portrait head of a man, sold first through Christies New York in 2012 for $52,500.  Despite the trafficker's arrest in the US, this piece was still up for sale during the COVID-affected TEFAF Maastricht art fair in 2020, at the stand of Swiss dealer, Jean David Cahn.  Here the piece was called "a Portrait Head of the Emperor Severus Alexander" with a price on request. 

The anthropomorphic coffin of Pa-di-Hor-pa-khered, believed to have belonged to a member of Egypt’s elite during the Ptolemaic era (4th–3rd century BCE), represents a compelling case in the study of illicit antiquities circulation and restitution.

In October 2016, a file is opened at the Brussels Public Prosecutor's Office (Notice number BR.68.LL.101942/2016)  for suspicion of art trafficking, regarding a striking gold-faced coffin once believed to have rested undisturbed in a necropolis in ancient Egypt.

The artefact made headlines this week in the cloister of the Royal Museums of Art and History, at the Cinquantenaire, not for its craftsmanship or symbolism, but because it was being restituted after having been illegally trafficked, and handled by multiple ancient art dealers and intermediaries, including Europeans Jacques Billen of Galerie Harmakhis in Belgium and Jaume Bagot Peix, operator of J. Bagot Arqueología in Barcelona.  The coffin's former occupant was a man by the name of Pa-di-Hor-pa-khered, (he who was given by Horus, the son of Osiris and Isis), his body long since dumped along the way.  Despite it's beautiful inscriptions, meticulous workmanship and coloured glass inlays in the eyes and breastplate, without its occupant it is just another sad example of how looted burial antiquities move—quietly, persistently, and without mercy or respect for the deal—through the global art market.

According to an article from Paris Match Belgique in December 2017, the coffin, along with a stone statuette had been stolen from an archaeological site in Egypt in December 2015 and where then smuggled out of the source country, ultimately ending up with the ancient art dealer in Le Sablon, in Brussels.  But despite these objects identification a decade ago, the coffin's return to HE Mr. Ahmed ABU ZEID, the Ambassador of the Arab Republic of Egypt to Belgium, Luxembourg and to the European Union and NATO, was just the final step in a long and complex legal procedure to bring the artefacts home.

Initiated following an international letter rogatory issued by the Attorney General of Cairo, and assisted by law enforcement partners in multiple European countries, the judgment requiring the artefact's restitution was issued by the Court of Cassation in Belgium on 9 April 2025. 

But this story isn’t just about one object. It’s about how looting, laundering, and legitimate-seeming sales and business relationships all intersect, and how buyers, sometimes unwittingly, often become the final link in a long and illegal chain. And it’s also a reminder that an object once buried with care over 2,000 years ago can (still) tie up judges and lawyers in legal battles, diplomatic gestures, and unending debates about who owns the past in the 21st century.

I would like to think the underworld god Osiris has kept watch over where this man’s body ultimately lays. 

Having surrendered in Germany in connection with a multi-country investigation into illicit antiquities trafficking, Serop Simonian was extradited to France, where he was indicted on 15 September 2023 for fraud, organized gang money laundering, and criminal association, in a complex where he is accused of selling more than €50 million worth of illegally excavated antiquities.

Placed in pre-trial detention while his case made its way through the French courts, his French lawyer, Chloé Arnoux, requested that the courts consider pretrial release under supervision, citing Simonian’s advanced age (born in 1942) and his deteriorating health.  Approaching his 83rd birthday, and sensitive to the fact that his attorney had listed a range of health problems—including osteoarthritis, intestinal issues, migraines, and depression—a liberty and detention judge signed off on his release from La Santé Prison, located in the Montparnasse district of the 14th arrondissement in southern Paris.

According to an article first published by Emmanuel Fansten in the French newspaper Libération, the judge granted his pretrial release on 31 December 2024. The judge ordered Simonian to report once a month to the Hamburg police station and not to leave Germany, except in relation to his upcoming court case.

Given the gravity of the octogenarian’s alleged crimes—and the extensive evidence uncovered by Junalco, France’s National Jurisdiction for the Fight Against Organized Crime, linking Simonian to a criminal network that trafficked looted Egyptian artifacts to prestigious institutions such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Louvre Abu Dhabi—the General Prosecutor of the Paris Court of Appeal formally challenged his release from custody. Citing Simonian’s significant financial resources and extensive international connections, the prosecutor argued that he posed a serious flight risk and urged the court to reconsider its decision to ensure he remained within the jurisdiction of French authorities.

Two weeks after Simonian was granted pretrial liberty, the investigating chamber held a hearing, which ultimately reversed the earlier release decision and ordered that he report back to La Santé prison. Unfortunately, by this point, he had disappeared.

Simonian's case illustrates that age is no barrier to flight, particularly when financial means, international connections, and open borders make travel easier.

One well-known example of a senior citizen on the lam is Israeli-American businessman Jacob “Kobi” Alexander, the former CEO of Comverse Technology, who was charged in 2006 with securities fraud and other financial crimes. While out on bail, Alexander transferred millions of dollars overseas and fled to Namibia, a nation that has no extradition treaty with the U.S. He lived there for a decade before voluntarily returning to the U.S. in 2016 to face sentencing.

Another case is that of Leonard “Fat Leonard” Francis, the defense contractor at the center of one of the largest bribery scandals in U.S. military history. Francis, who was in his late 60s, was granted house arrest pending trial on the grounds that he was being treated for kidney cancer. However, while awaiting sentencing, he cut off his GPS ankle monitor in September 2022 and fled the country. Authorities later captured him in Venezuela, but his escape underscored how older fugitives can exploit compassionate release during ongoing judicial proceedings.

The flights from justice of these individuals, as well as Simonian's (whose whereabouts remain unknown), highlight how gray-haired, white-collar criminals with the financial resources to do so can evade justice just as easily as their younger counterparts.

Update:  28 March 2025 Journalists with The Art Newspaper have spoken with Simonian's lawyer, Chloé Arnoux,  who, breaking her initial silence stated that the problematic dealer was now at an assisted living facility near his family in Hamburg.   In another article Arnoux is quoted as saying "He was not notified in a language he understands that there was an appeal against his release."

No mention was made however explaining why she failed to explain this to her client given she would have been privy to the Court's decision as Simonian's counsel, or why, up until now he had not obeyed the French ruling to return to prison to await his trial. 

Upon arriving at John F. Kennedy International Airport on January 22, 2020 from an international flight from Egypt, Eldarir had submitted a customs declaration form to U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency (CBP), as required for all travellers entering the United States.  On that form, he had stated that he was bringing in merchandise and agricultural products worth $300.  However, when CBP officers inspected his luggage, instead of finding low value business related products, they discovered three suitcases filled from top to bottom with antiquities wrapped in protective packaging. 

Inside Eldarir's careful bubblewrap and foam padding were a total of 590 Egyptian artefacts.  Some of these still had sand and soil adhering to them, a telltale sign which underscored their recent excavation, and, in the words of the agents examining his luggage, still smelled of wet earth. 

Along with the antiquities, CBP agents found documents "written in Arabic on watermarked paper with stamps affixed on the top right of the documents, and two-hole punches along the left-hand side" along with blank paper resembling that of the purported provenances, with the same watermark and two-hole punches along the left-hand side and thirteen loose stamps similar to the ones used on the provenances.  When asked if he had ever sold historical artefacts previously, Eldarir replied that he had sold "a few in the last few years", a statement which would turn out to be a gross understatement.

Given that he was unable to provide the customs agents with sufficient proof that the packaged artefacts he was importing into New York had legally been exported from Egypt prior to the enactment of the country's 06 August 1983 Law No. 117 "on the Protection of Antiquities, CBP seized the antiquities pending further investigation.

Eldarir was subsequently arrested on 28 February 2020 and charged in the United States District Court, Eastern District of New York, on two counts of smuggling, under Title 18 U.S. Code § 545, 2 and 3551 et seq.  As part of that investigation, the United States also sought forfeiture of the following antiquities in accordance with: (a) Title 18, United States Code, Section 982(a)(2)(B):

forty-one (41) ancient Egyptian gold artifacts;

nineteen (19) ancient coins;

two (2) Greco-Roman rings;

thirty-one (31) ancient Egyptian talismans (Ptolemaic period);

fourteen (14) ancient beads;

twenty-six (26) ancient Egyptian wooden figures;

four hundred (400) ancient Egyptian faience ushabtis;

three (3) ancient Egyptian wooden panels with painted figures;

one ( I ) ancient Egyptian large stone face;

two (2) Egyptian wooden masks;

two (2) Egyptian stone panels with hieroglyphics; 

three (3) ancient Egyptian canopic jar lids;

two (2) ancient Greco-Roman stela;

one (1) ancient Greco-Roman terracotta headless torso with robes;

seven (7) ancient Greco-Roman terracotta statues; 

three (3) ancient Egyptian large terracotta vases; 

two (2) Egyptian smalIterracotta vases;

two (2) Egyptian alabaster artifacts;

two (2) ancient Egyptian Osiris headpieces/crowns; 

twenty-six (26) ancient Greco-Roman oil lamps; 

one (1) Greco-Roman terracotta pilgrim's flask;

one (1) ancient Egyptian polychrome relief.

For years prior to his arrest, Eldarir had been successfully laundering plundered artefacts onto the licit ancient art market.   Often his pieces carried with them a fabricated provenance claiming that the pieces were part of "The Ashraf Eldarir Private Collection of Ancient Art, New York, USA", or "Acquired by Izz al-Din Tah al-Darir Bey in Egypt December 1946 from Salah al-Din Sarmali Bey" or that they had been inherited through the trafficker's grandfather. 

To disguise their illicit origins, and to cosmetically claim that the pieces were derived from a collection which predated Egypt's ban on export, Eldarir's trafficked artefacts sometimes mentioned that his grandfather or "Ezeldeen Eldarir," was a friend of Prince of Egypt, Omar Tosson, with whom he shared a passion for archaeology or that the collection had been formed during the 1930s-1940s, mostly as gifts from Prince Tosson, which he claimed had been moved to the United States "in 1948 where it remained with the family until the present day."

With no export licenses, and no factual proof which supported his vague claims of long term ownership for the pieces he handled, aside from what would turned out to be self-made documents giving a cosmetic overhaul of legitimacy, Eldarir's smuggled antiquities circulated among US and Europe's prestigious ancient art galleries from 2012 until shortly after his arrest was announced publicly.  After which ARCA published a list of material it had identified as being linked to the suspect trafficker.  This compilation of suspect Egyptian antiquities was made public on 8 July 2020, and can be found here.

One of the more interesting high value pieces was this portrait head of a man, sold first through Christies New York in 2012 for $52,500.  Despite the trafficker's arrest in the US, this piece was still up for sale during the COVID-affected TEFAF Maastricht art fair in 2020, at the stand of Swiss dealer, Jean David Cahn.  Here the piece was called "a Portrait Head of the Emporer Severus Alexander" with a price on request. 

"Ali Aboutaam knew or must have assumed that they had been wrongfully acquired". 

Provenance:

Elias Bustros, Beruit 1950’s-1983;

By descent, 1983-1986?;

(Gawain McKinley, England, on behalf of Selim Dere and Sleiman Aboutaam, 1986)

"Ali Aboutaam, in his capacity as administrator of Phoenix Ancient Art SA, has asked art experts, or has asked employees of Phoenix Ancient Art SA to obtain from art experts: produce and/or sign false invoices; and/or produce or cause others to produce documents indicating source that are contrary to reality, sometimes contained directly in invoices; and/or provide untrue source indications for use by others."

"a pedigree aimed at dispelling suspicion of illicit provenance and/or to facilitate their customs transfer with a view to their sale on the art market through Phoenix Ancient Art SA, Tanis Antiquities LTB and Inanna Art Services SA, i.e. companies of which Ali Aboutaam has Control."