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

TEFAF Maastricht 2022 Image Credit: ARCA

On 15 April 2024 and 19 April 2024, ARCA published two articles building on an announcement made by Spain's Ministry of the Interior which involved the identification of a looted Egyptian object. That investigation involved the Policía Nacional's Historical Heritage Brigade in collaboration with the Dutch Politie, the expertise of an extremely knowledgeable forensic scholar, and the assistance of a cooperating art gallery. With their combined efforts, the Swiss dealer voluntarily relinquished the suspect antiquity to the Dutch police.

Yesterday, Caretaker Prime Minister Dick Schoof, in a meeting with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, announced that the Netherlands will hand over that same stolen sculpture by the end of the year.

Too frequently, antiquities restitution reporting becomes formulaic, providing only cursory information on an object's country of origin, value, age, and the agencies responsible for its seizure or restitution. This happened once again in this case, where one Dutch article reduced the historic object to its most basic description, “a 3,500-year-old stone head from the dynasty of Pharaoh Thutmose III,” followed by a brief paragraph speculating that the piece might be put on display at Egypt's the Grand Egyptian Museum in Cairo, which officially opened yesterday.

Basic shapes of block statues

ARCA, being a research-based organisation which specifically examines  crimes that impact art and artefacts, does its best to provide more details to problematic pieces and the problematic dealers that profit from them. Our reporting serves as a means of holding people accountable and reminding individuals of the need to collect responsibly. 

The artefact being returned is not just an Egyptian "head".  It is a decapitated head broken off of an 18th Dynasty Egyptian block statue that was likely intentionally hacked off its body, or deliberately broken at the shoulders for ease of smuggling. Had it been intact, this memorial statue would have shown a man crouched and wrapped in a cloak, inscribed, at the very least with the name of the owner, incised on the body, the base, or the back pillar if one existed. 

Our original reporting touched on what we were able to ascertain about this disembodied head of a squatting man. We knew he was documented on social media sites and came up for sale through a Swiss-based art dealer during the short-lived European Fine Art Fair in 2020 and again with this same dealer when the fair reopened post-Covid in 2022.  Having been the subject of a joint-European policing initiative we know that authorities were convinced he was illegally exported from Egypt in contravention of the country's cultural property laws, then transited through intermediaries in Thailand before being first put up for sale in Barcelona, where it was sold by controversial gallery owner, Jaume Bagot Peix, of J. Bagot Arqueología.

As early as 2015 Bagot's problematic purchasing had placed him on the radar of Policía Judicial y de la UCIE de la Comisaría General de Información.  In 2018, he and Oriol Carreras Palomar were formally charged for their alleged participation in a crime of financing terrorism, belonging to a criminal organisation, concealment of contraband, and use of forgery for their roles in facilitating the sale of illicit antiquities involving pieces trafficked from a second war torn country, Libya.  

Bagot also was charged, and subsequently convicted in Italy, related to a stolen Roman statue and has been linked to a stolen Egyptian ushabti from Sudan, which was again circulated on the art market with falsified provenance documentation. That artefact was sold to the Rijksmuseum van Oudheden in the Netherlands.  

But despite being suspected of trafficking material from at least three war-torn countries, and having one conviction in mainland Europe while other cases in other jurisdictions pile up, Bagot continues to receive favourable coverage in the press and has been described as operating "one of the most renowned ancient art galleries in Spain."  He also continues to be granted booths and promotion by Spain's Feriarte, an important annual art fair held at IFEMA Madrid, most recently from 18 to 26 October 2025, as well as at ANTIK Almoneda, another Madrid art sales event held from 22 to 30 March 2025.

All this demonstrates how long justice can take. In this Dutch restitution, it will have required five years from this objects initial sighting and identification at TEFAF in 2020 until its ultimate return to Egypt later this year and even longer for these problematic Spanish dealers to face the consequences of their actions. This case, like a second Bagot-related case in Belgium involving the the recent restitution of the Egyptian coffin of Pa-di-Hor-pa-khered, which was stolen from an archaeological site in Egypt in December 2015 and restituted in July 2025 both serve as reminders that restitution is not simply a bureaucratic exercise; it is a fight against a global market that too often rewards negligence and turns a blind eye to complicity. 

Until the art trade adopts a genuine commitment to better behaviour, transparency and due diligence, and holds its art market actors accountable, the cycle of loss, recovery, protracted restitution, and delayed accountability will continue, slowly, one object at a time.

TEFAF Maastricht 2020 Image Credit: ARCA

According to Spain's Ministry of the Interior, following an investigation begun in 2023, the Policía Nacional have arrested a Barcelona gallery owner (Jaume Bagot Peix, operator of J. Bagot Arqueología) for allegedly committing the crimes of money laundering, smuggling, and document falsification in relation to this black granite head of a funerary monument for a high ranking official from the reign of Hatshepsut or Tuthmosis III in Egypt. 

TEFAF Maastricht 2022 Image Credit: ARCA

Valued at 190,000 euros, the circa 1504-1450 BCE artefact had been acquired by the Barcelona ancient art dealer in July 2015 via an intermediary in Bangkok, Thailand.  ARCA notes that this partial statue was documented on social media sites and up for sale through a Swiss-based art dealer during the short-lived European Fine Art Fair in 2020 and again with this same dealer when the fair reopened post-Covid in 2022.  

Having been the subject of a joint-European policing initiative which resulted in law enforcement authorities with the Dutch Politie in the Netherlands sharing evidence with their Spanish counterparts, police in Spain were able to concretised that this Egyptian artefact was illicit, despite it having been in free circulation for seven years through several sales passages occurring via dealers in Spain, Germany, and Switzerland.  Prior to these transactions, the object had traveled though the transit county of Thailand via an intermediary in Bangkok. 

The 18th Dynasty head depicts its patron wearing a short wig revealing the ears as well as defined almond-shaped eyes and prominent eyebrows.  In its complete and original form, the head would have once been attached at the shoulders to the rest of its memorial block statue representing a seated non-royal person.  

The Swiss gallery that had purchased the artwork via another ancient art dealer in Germany, freely relinquished the artefact to the Dutch authorities once it was determined that the piece was suspect and had been acquired via the Spanish gallery owner, who had already been linked to the illicit trade in antiquities in conflict zones such as North Africa and the Middle East. 

To circulate this illicit artefact, the Spanish gallerist provided his trusting buyer, with a document that substituted collected information relating to several archaeological pieces belonging to a Spanish collection from the 70s making it appear as though the head had been part of a legitimate and documented collection prior to Egypt's antiquities laws tightening in 1983.  A not uncommon technique, suspect dealers have often attempted to "whiten" freshly looted material, by substituting, reusing, or outright fabricating documents of ownership, which, if not carefully explored, cosmetically appear to provide a legitimate "pedigree" to an antiquity which in reality is more recent plunder from an illicit excavation.  

It is for this reason, that the dealer who has been arrested has been charged not only with smuggling and money laundering, but also with document falsification of the object's provenance record. 

Point of reference in 2018, Frédéric Loore revealed in Paris Match that Jaume Bagot's network used various smuggling routes, notably via Egypt and Jordan to the United Arab Emirates, before returning to Catalonia after transiting through Germany or Thailand.

By:  Lynda Albertson

NB: For now, the Spanish authorities have elected to publish their arrest announcement withholding the name of the charged ancient art dealer.