On 15 April 2024 and 19 April 2024, ARCA published two articles building on an announcement made by Spain's Ministry of the Interiorwhich 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.
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
In this kind of reportage, the significance of the artefact takes second place to the spectacle of international cultural diplomacy. We miss the opportunity to emphasise that, despite regulations, investigations, and cooperating dealers, illicit antiquities continue to enter the licit ancient art market, and that it can take years, in this case from 2020 to 2025, to correct the wrongs involved in their circulation.
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 statuethat 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.
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.
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 beenillegally 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 abouthow 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.
Following the order of the Central Court of Investigation number 6 of Madrid on 24 November 2023, it was announced last week that Spain had provisionally delivered a grouping of antiquities including four marble sculptures and eight mosaics, recovered during Operación Harmakis to the Libyan authorities at the country's embassy in Spain.
Hardly covered in the English speaking press, the pieces were formally transferred at a ceremony held at the Intercontinental Hotel in Madrid, the pieces were delivered to Mohamed Alfaloos, the general director of Museums and Archeology of Libya, and representatives of the ministries of Culture and Foreign Affairs. Seized during investigations conducted by Spain's law enforcement authorities, each of the artefacts has been earmarked by the Court as having been looted in the North African country, coming from Balagrae (modern day al-Bayda), Apollonia (modern day Marsa-Susa), and the UNESCO World Heritage site of Cyrene (near modern day Shahhat). They will remain at the Libyan embassy in Madrid, in the custody of the Libyan ambassador to Spain, Walid Abu Abdulla, as per the court's ruling, until the legal case surrounding them has concluded.
The recovery of these artefacts dates back to late March 2018, when, after three years of investigations involving some fifty law enforcement officers, including the Spanish Policía Nacional, the UDEV Central de la Comisaría General de Policía Judicial and the UCIE de la Comisaría General de Información formal charges were brought against ancient art dealer Jaume Bagot and his partner Oriol Carreras Palomar. During which, the pair were taken into custody under suspicion 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.
During the 2018 Harmakis action, five property searches were conducted, three in Barcelona and two in Argentona, with police inspecting a restoration studio, a deposit/warehouse where the artworks were stored, Bagot's residence and his Barcelona art gallery and the home of Oriol Carreras Palomar. During the execution of these search warrants, artefacts from multiple countries and circulation documentation were retained by police as evidence in a criminal investigation.
On March 28th of that same year, the Policía Nacional in Barcelona released a video which depicts part of the searches in which some of the objects sequestered during their investigation can be identified. In this opensource video, some of the mosaics handed over to the Libyan authorities can be seen beginning at 0.38 seconds into the video. In addition, the marble head of Demeter is depicted from 0.58 until its boxing at 1.11 and the Roman togatus can be seen at 1.19.
Answering to the charges in Spain, Jaume Bagot and Oriel Carreras appeared before Judicial Magistrate Diego de Egea of the Central Court of Instruction Number 6 of the National Court on March 26, 2018 where each were formally informed of the allegations and charges pending against them. During the hearing the magistrate granted both men release pending trial, while imposing a financial surety (bond) of €12000 and a series of pretrial release conditions which include the forfeiture of their passports, a mandate to remain within the territory of Spain, and biweekly court appearances as conditions of their release while awaiting trial.
Standing by the all too familiar, I didn't know approach, which has, for so long, contributed to some of the challenges of prosecuting individuals for the illegal trafficking of cultural objects, Bagot pleaded his innocence in handling blood antiquities in an March 30, 2018 interview with Crónica Global Media. When asked the carefully-worded question --Do you claim not to have bought any objects from sellers in Iraq, Libya or Syria? The Spanish dealer responds cleverly:
What the Barcelona dealer failed to acknowledge in his interview was that he has bought artefacts coming from conflict and post conflict countries, via intermediary sellers, in multiple countries, who are known for brokering the sales of ancient objects from countries plagued with political and civil upheaval including, in this case, funerary sculptures of Cyrene in Libya. This demonstartes, once again, that the routes laundered "blood antiquities" travel can be circuitous and that the international flow patterns conflict, and post conflict, antiquities travel often involve intermediary countries with willing middlemen. This allows bad acting dealers in market country galleries to profess their purchases to these third-parties were made in good faith. That is, until officers leading investigations gather evidence which proves definitively otherwise.
Let's not forget that the 10th section of the Rome court in Italy sentenced Jaume Peix Bagot to 4.5 years of incarceration for his handling & laundering of the second-century headless Roman sculpture depicting the Muse Calliope which had been stolen from actor Roberto Benigni's villa in 2010. That sculpture was identified in Spain with the dealer in April 2019 and was identified as part of a multinational investigation conducted by the Spanish authorities and Italy's Comando Carabinieri per la Tutela del Patrimonio Culturale who also recovered another sculpture in the posession of another Spanish dealer that had been stolen from Villa Borghese.
ARCA would like to close this blog post with a reminder to its collecting readers that the market for illicit antiquities operates within the framework of basic economic principles, where the scarcity of authentic material and supply and demand dynamics play a pivotal role in incentivising the clandestine trade in ancient artefacts. As the demand for antiquities by collectors, private investors, and museums increases, this buying power in turn stimulates profiteering individuals to acquire more and more material, sometimes sourcing artefacts through individuals who engage in, or turn a blind eye to, where, or who, a sellable object comes from.
Collectors of ancient art who acquire archaeological material without conducting thorough scrutiny of the sellers, especially when encountering seemingly too-good-to-be-true items like a Hellenistic Greek marble head from a war torn country, inadvertently fuel a perpetuating cycle of illegal activities. Unchecked acquisitions also contribute to the ongoing destruction of archaeological sites, posing a threat to the preservation of our historical record.
A more conscientious approach involves diligent research into the provenance and legal status of what a collector or museum are purchasing, accompanied by a proactive "Know Your Seller" strategy. This not only shields the purchaser from potential legal complications but also plays a pivotal role in disrupting the demand side of the illicit supply chain for cultural goods, particularly antiquities from conflict-ridden regions.
Responsible acquisition practices can and does empower collectors to contribute actively to the protection of global cultural heritage. By prioritising the preservation of our shared human history over profit, collectors wield significant influence in fostering an art market characterized by ethical values and a genuine commitment to cultural preservation.
While much has been discussed with regards to terrorism financed via the sale of plundered antiquities, substantiating claims with clear and defined ‘evidence’ is not straightforward. From the outside these networks are labyrinthine, multi-tiered and opaque. From the inside militants and non-militant criminals are known to conduct illicit transactions with cash and cash alternatives which are, by their very nature, structured to fly below the radar of law enforcement authorities. This makes assessing their impact difficult to estimate and the detection and prosecution of criminals complicated.
Even when uncovered, traffickers involved in the laundering of illicit antiquities usually haven't kept substantive incriminating paper trails that investigators can peruse. This makes it difficult to determine what their profit margins are on the antiquities they launder. Nor are people facing charges of laundering antiquities through the art market likely to be forthcoming with incriminating evidence that identifies who else has benefited from the layered transactions that occur from the time the object is looted from an archaeological rich region until the antiquity reached the identified via a collector, dealer, gallery, or auction house.
All this to say that those involved in the illicit market don't advertise their relationships with known criminals and the same holds even more true when the profiteering parties have direct or indirect business dealings with transnational criminal networks or militant organizations. Additionally the economic behavior of terrorist groups and transnational criminal networks during conflicts share many of the same characteristics, methods and tactics. Both operate in secrecy and little is known about how groups such as these coexist and, or, interact within the same geographic space.
But like any legal supply chain does, an illegal supply chain matches supply with demand. So while much of our evidence of where the proceeds of transnational artefact crime finish is condemned by the market as being overly anecdotal, what we see clearly is from what regions illicit contraband flows. From there we can extrapolate that illicit antiquities originating in countries of conflict, from zones where terrorists or militants have a controlling stake territorially, are by extension, a viable revenue stream for terrorism.
Where the two chains, the legal and the illegal, meet.
This month after almost three years of investigations, involving some fifty law enforcement officers, Spanish authorities have brought formal charges against two individuals for their alleged participation in a crime of financing terrorism, belonging to a criminal organization, concealment of contraband and use of forgery for their roles in facilitating the sale of illicit antiquities.
On orders from the Audiencia Nacional, a special high court in Spain with jurisdiction throughout the Spanish territory, as well as over international crimes which come under the competence of Spanish courts, Barcelona antiquities dealer Jaume Bagot and his partner Oriol Carreras Palomar are being investigated for their purported roles in illiit trafficking.Both have been taken into custody for their alleged role(s) in the sale of Greek and Roman antiquities plundered from Libya and Egypt, which prosecutors believe were then being sold through the licit European art market purporting to be antiquities from historic collections.
Answering to the charges, the pair appeared before Judicial Magistrate Diego de Egea of the Central Court of Instruction Number 6 of the National Court on Monday, March 26, 2018 where they were formally informed of the allegations against them. During the hearing the magistrate granted their release pending trial, imposing a financial surety (bond) and a series of pretrial release conditions which included the forfeiture of their passports, a mandate to remain within the territory of Spain, and biweekly court appearances as conditions of their release while awaiting trial.
Jaume Bagot established his gallery, J. Bagot Arqueología Ancient Art Gallery in 2005 in the heart of Barcelona. According to his profile on the BRAFA art fair website, where he is a vetted dealer of ancient art, Bagot's firm specializes in the sale of art from the Etruscan, Greek, Roman and Egyptian civilizations, from Mesopotamia, the Middle East, Gandhara and from various Pre-Columbian cultures. No mention of Libyan cultural objects are mentioned in his BRAFA profile, and yet, police authorities in Spain have seized sculpture which originated from three cities of Libya: Albaida, Apolonia and Cyrene, some of which are believed to have been looted while the territory was under the control of Islamist militant groups.
In addition to forming strategic affiliations within the art market's important dealer associations, Bagot's gallery's "about us" page assures potential collectors that he is an ethical dealer by stating:
"Our main objective is to offer original ancient works of art guaranteeing their authenticity and maximum quality while at the same time strictly complying with the laws of protection of national, foreign and UNESCO heritage."
and
"We also carry out exhaustive research into the provenance and previous ownership of the pieces. To this end we make use of the data base [sic] of stolen objects, Art Loss Register, as well as making use of publications, sworn statements, dated photographs, bills, customs documents and insurance policies."
All of which stands in stark contradiction to the apparent charges he now faces with the Spanish authorities of facilitating the sale of illicit antiquities from regions of conflict where terrorist actors might have been involved.
Criminal actors and investments in the legitimate art economy: The making of a case = Good (unfortunately usally unpaid) research.
As is all too often the case, some of the best evidence collected highlighting trends in the field of illicit trafficking, is research conducted by unpaid academics, as there has been little funding up until now, made available at the national or multinational level in market countries to financially support the type of in-depth specialized research required by provenance experts studying the flow of illicit objects onto the licit market. This holds true as well for this particular Spanish investigation, which got its start thanks to an academic researcher.
During his PhD research on les sculptures funéraires de Cyrénaïque (the funerary sculptures of Cyrenaica), French historian, turned conflict antiquities researcher, Morgan Belzic, of the École Pratique des Hautes Études had been working with the French Archaeological Mission and Libya heritage authorities documenting antiquity in the northeastern part of modern Libya focusing on the cities of Shahat (Cyrene), Susa (Apollonia), Tulmaytha (Ptolemais), Tocra (Taucheira), and Benghazi (Euesperides/Berenike).
Looking at evidence useful for understanding the culture and history of ancient Cyrenaica, which thrived between the 6th century BCE and the 4th century CE, Belzic uncovered a worrisome correlation between the looting and destruction that has occurred over the past twenty years at the Greek necropoleis of Libya and an uptick in the number of ancient objects, identifiable solely to that specific region, appearing on the international art market. In conjunction with this increased availability of ancient material surfacing on the art market, he also noted that tomb destruction in the region had risen exponentially, in part as a result of the longstanding instability in the region, but notably over the last ten years in conjunction with items appearing in the market.
Speaking with Morgan about his research last summer, during an informal ARCA meeting of academic antiquities researchers, he told me that while the material remains, the alabaster, glass, and terracotta, found in the tombs of Cyrenaica could likewise be found in other Hellenistic regions, making it difficult to pinpoint the country of origin for looted antiquities of these types, the deities and funerary portraits of Cyrenaica are an exception.
Belzic explained that these sculptures are quite specific in their iconography and style, making it possible for experts, familiar with the sculpture of Cyrenaica, to objectively identify pieces from the region. Then when these types of sculpture come on the market, with limited documentation that does not match with existing established collections, one can begin to question their legitimacy and whether or not they may have come from ransacked tombs before making their way into some of Europe's prestigious galleries.
With two rival governments, and countless local militias in Libya, Belzic understood that the probability of staunching the flow of illicit objects following out of Libya could only be tackled by disrupting the demand side of the supply chain. With that in mind, he turned his research over to law enforcement authorities in Spain who began their lengthy investigation building upon the foundation of his academic research.
Bagot’s statements are telling as they touch upon the legal framework, technicalities and procedural obstacles that the dealer may try to use in his defence and when fighting any cross-border restitution claim presented by Libya and Egypt in relation to the seizure of his merchandise. It is this culture of willful impunity, the eye's closed "I didn't know" approach which has, for so long, contributed to the challenges of preventing the illegal trafficking of cultural objects through the means of prosecution.
Unless we establish mandated due diligence accountability for dealers, those who deal in the grey area of the market will continue to rely on the legal conceptualizations of property and ownership in countries favourable to their mercurial transactions.
Last week I spoke at an UNESCO-EU-funded conference in Paris entitled “Engaging the European Art Market in the fight against the illicit trafficking of cultural property”where I recommended more dedicated public prosecutors and law enforcement officers assigned to focus on art crimes, and building capacity (i.e. funding) in support of experts dedicated to analyzing trafficking from regions at risk. Belzic, who sat beside me, listened thoughtfully to Erika Bochereau, General Secretary of C.I.N.O.A. (Confédération Internationale des Négociants en Oeuvres d'Art) as she said “It is in the interest of dealers to work only in the licit trade because their business depends on it.”
I wonder what the confederation's stance will be now that one of their members has come under prosecutorial scrutiny.
antiquities looting,Barcelona,Egyptian,illicit trafficking,J. Bagot Arqueología Ancient Art Gallery,Jaume Bagot,Spain
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