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Showing posts with label Louvre Abu Dhabi. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Louvre Abu Dhabi. Show all posts

August 27, 2026

Thursday, August 27, 2026 - ,,,, No comments

Keeping It in the Family: Serop Simonian’s Children Convicted Over Antiquities Proceeds

The Hamburg Regional Court has convicted the children of a Hamburg-based art dealer Serop Ohan Simonian in connection with the laundering and sale of Egyptian antiquities allegedly removed through illegal excavations.  The court's ruling ordered the confiscation of €32 million in proceeds and imposed fines for the antiquities dealer's son totalling €90,000 and his daughter totalling €30,000 

Image Credit: 
Serop Simonoian
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Although the German court did not publish either defendant’s full names, identifying them as the “adult son and daughter of the antiquities dealer”, the objects, transactions, charges, and financial transfers described by prosecutors correspond with the cases previously brought against Abraham and Alice Simonian.  They are the son and daughter of Hamburg-based antiquities dealer Serop Simonian.

The decision, handed down by the Court on Monday, 24 August 2026, represents one of the first major convictions arising from the sprawling international investigation into a network accused of placing illicitly excavated Egyptian objects with some of the world’s most prestigious museums.

According to German prosecutors, the male defendant, identified by the court as “S.”, was charged with receiving stolen property and fraud.  The female defendant, identified as “Sc.”, faced a money-laundering charge.  

Earlier reporting, including a detailed investigation published recently by The Atlantic in May 2026, decribes Serop Simonian’s son Abraham as being prosecuted in Germany for fraud and receiving stolen goods, and his sister, Alice, as being prosecuted for money laundering.  Their lawyers denied the allegations at the time.

The alignment of the charges is reinforced by the individual antiquities and transactions outlined in the Hamburg proceedings.  Prosecutors said that one of the cases concerned a funerary ensemble which included a series of nested coffins.  The objects were allegedly acquired after being removed illegally from Egypt and transported to Germany, despite being the property of the Egyptian state.  These artefacts were subsequently sold to the Louvre Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates with the assistance of a French antiquities dealer and accompanied by an allegedly forged Egyptian export permit.

While the museum was not named in the German court report, the description corresponds with the richly decorated cartonnage case and three wooden sarcophagi of Princess Henuttawy which was acquired by Louvre Abu Dhabi in 2014 for €1.5 million.  That funerary ensemble was sold by Christophe Kunicki, who is also presently under investigation, and purportedly came with a certificate from Michael Höveler-Müller as having been in Bonn, Germany prior to 2010. 

The Hamburg case also addressed the sale of a monumental bust, once said to be Cleopatra that is now referred to as ‘Head of a Ptolemaic Queen: Cleopatra VII (?).  The Abu Dhabi museum is known to have purchased seven pieces from Kunicki and his partner Richard Semper.  Prosecutors alleged that an individual identified as “Si.” had possessed the sculpture for years before it was sold to the Louvre-affiliated museum for approximately €35 million, the highest known price to date the museum has ever paid for a single antiquity.

The buyer was allegedly given a false account of the object’s ownership, supported by documentation intended to establish an apparently legitimate collecting history.

A third transaction mentioned in this German case involved a rose granite stela in the name of the “boy king” pharaoh Tutankhamun.  It was created in 1327 BCE.  According to prosecutors, “Si.” and another participant identified as “D.” sold the object to the museum in December 2016 for €8.5 million after misleading the buyer about its provenance.  

Jean-Luc Martinez, the former Louvre Museum Director from 2013 to 2021 approved the acquisition of the Tutankhamun stela and other objects, from Hamburg-based Lebanese dealer Roben Dib.  Dib worked for, as well as separately from, Serop Simonian and his brother Kevork, also supplying suspect artefacts through the auction house Pierre Bergé & Associés, as well as the Paris-based dealer Christophe Kunicki. 

Part of the payment for this stela was transferred in 2017 to the female defendant identified as “Sc.”, corresponding with the money-laundering charge previously reported against Alice Simonian.

Taken together, the details leave little reasonable doubt that the unnamed defendants in the Hamburg court ruling are Abraham and Alice Simonian. Nevertheless, the judgment must be reported with precision, as the court did not publicly disclose their full names. Their identities can instead be established by comparing the facts set out in the ruling with previously published open-source information concerning the proceedings against Serop Simonian and members of his family.

Before being formally charged, Serop Simonian, the Egyptian-born, Armenian antiquities dealer operated the Galerie Antiker Kunst Dr Serop Simonian and, later, Dionysos Ancient Coins & Antiquities in Hamburg.  Investigators have described him as a central figure in a network suspected of circulating looted Egyptian antiquities through dealers, warehouses, private collections, and museums in Europe, the Middle East, and the United States.

Simonian, through his lawyers, has denied the trafficking illicit antiquities.  He has maintained that much of the material handled by his family had been acquired by his brothers, Simon and Hagop Simonian, from Egyptian dealers and was lawfully exported during the 1960s and 1970s, before Egypt’s present antiquities legislation came into force.  The evidence disputing this is quite substantial and his statements have been challenged by investigators who say that several objects attributed to these older family collections were, in fact, freshly excavated and smuggled over the last decade.  In some transactions, allegedly fabricated ownership histories and backdated export documents were used in an attempt to give the objects a patina of legitimacy.  

Through his lawyers, Simonian has denied trafficking illicit antiquities.  He maintains that much of the material handled by his family was acquired by his brothers, Simon and Hagop Simonian, from Egyptian dealers and lawfully exported during the 1960s and 1970s, before Egypt’s current antiquities legislation came into force.  Investigators have challenged this account, citing substantial evidence that several objects attributed to these older family collections were recently excavated and smuggled.  In some transactions, allegedly fabricated ownership histories and falsified export documents were used to give the objects Simonian circulated a patina of legitimacy.

German police searched Simonian’s home and the Dionysos gallery in 2020.  On 20 July of that year, French investigating judges issued a European arrest warrant for him as authorities in Germany, France, and the United States examined antiquities sold to Louvre Abu Dhabi, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and other institutions and dealers.  His business associate, Roben Dib, would later be arrested in Paris on 22 March 2022 and formally indicted on charges of organised fraud, criminal association, and money laundering.

Simonian himself was indicted for organised fraud, money laundering, and criminal association in connection with the alleged smuggling of Egyptian artefacts and their sale to Louvre Abu Dhabi in 2016.   Arrested in Hamburg, he was extradited to France in September 2023 and detained for a period at La Santé prison in Paris.  German authorities reportedly declined to extradite his adult children because of their family circumstances, including the presence of young children.

While their father's case is ongoing, these Hamburg convictions are important because it moves part of this sprawling investigation beyond seizures, repatriations, and merely allegations.  It establishes criminal responsibility in relation to the proceeds of crime generated by specific museum sales and imposes the confiscation of €32 million, a sum reflecting the extraordinary profitability of the trade in illicit antiquities.  The case also demonstrates that antiquities laundering does not depend solely upon forged export permits. Institutional associations can themselves be used to give suspect objects a false appearance of legitimacy.

Objects associated with the Simonian family were once stored or exhibited at several German museums over extended periods of time.  In some cases, museums appear to have accepted privately owned antiquities into their facilities without complete documentation or conventional loan arrangements.  Their presence within respected German institutions could subsequently be cited as part of an object’s collecting and exhibition history.

The Simonian cases also illustrate why assumptions on the origins of high-value pieces without solid documentation is dangerous. A dealer's name in an ownership history is not a substitute for evidence of lawful excavation, export, and transfer of title.

For acquiring institutions, the lesson is not simply that forged documents can be convincing.  It is that due diligence must examine the origin of the objects AND documents, as the chronology they purport to establish, the identities and relationships of former owners, the movement of funds, and any gaps between an object’s alleged discovery and its first verifiable appearance say a lot about the object's legitimacy in a collection. 

These convictions of Abraham and Alice Simonian mark an important development, but they do not conclude the larger and wider investigation against their family member or his associated contacts.  Proceedings involving Serop Simonian, Roben Dib, Christophe Kunicki and others remain separate, and questions continue to surround objects known to have passed through this network and on into museums and private collections.

What the Hamburg judgment does establish is that the movement of illicit antiquities cannot be separated from the movement of the money these objects generate. This is hugely important.  It illustrates how false provenance can transform an illegally excavated object into a financially lucrativeaquisition.  Money laundering completes that transformation by converting the resulting sale proceeds into usable wealth.

In Hamburg, this court has now placed a substantial cost on both.

March 27, 2025

Thursday, March 27, 2025 - ,,,,,,,, No comments

From Pretrial Release to Disappearance: Where is Hamburg-based dealer Serop Simonian?

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. 

February 3, 2023

Friday, February 03, 2023 - ,,, No comments

The Paris Court of Appeal has ruled not to drop the antiquities trafficking indictment against former Louvre director Jean-Luc Martinez and curator Jean-François Charnier


In the French courts today, the investigative chamber of the Paris Court of Appeal ruled on the request to cancel the indictments against Jean-Luc Martinez and Jean-François Charnier requested by the Advocate General. 

Last summer, the country saw Martinez, its former director of the Musée du Louvre from 2013 to 2021, and the former scientific director of the Agence France Museums charged with "complicity" in money laundering, "by facilitating the false justification of the origin of the property of the author of a crime or an offense".  Charnier, for his part, is suspected of having intentionally favoured the sale of €50 million in acquisitions of illicit material to the Emirati museum, in spite of warnings about their problematic.  


The heart of the accusations has been the costly purchases of several Egyptian artefacts between 2014 and 2018, including:
  • a pink granite stele of Tutankhamun, acquired for 8.5 million euros
  • a bust of Cleopatra, acquired for 35 million euros, 
  • a golden funeral coffin ensemble for Princess Henouttaouy, acquired 5 million euros 
  • a bronze sculpture of Isis
  • a blue earthenware hippopotamus 

The alleged primary brokers and handlers of these artefacts include France-based art broker Christophe Kunicki, Hamburg-based art dealer Roben Dib, and Dib's business partner Serop Simonian, an art dealer of Armenian origin, born in Egypt, who also resides in Germany. 

Suspected of playing a central role in the sale of illegally excavated antiquities, Christophe Kunicki and Richard Semper were taken into custody on June 22, 2020 and charged with with gang fraud and money laundering. Both were released from French custody on June 26, 2020, with judicial supervision orders pending their trial outcome.  

Suspected by US and French authorities of playing a central role in the sale of suspect antiquities to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Louvre Abu Dhabi, Roben Dib, a director at Dionysos Ancient Coins & Antiquities was taken into French custody in March 2022, shortly after posting a €600,000 bail in Germany. 

Held in pretrial detention for seven months at the Centre pénitentiaire de Fresnes, Val-de-Marne, south of Paris, Dibs is released from French custody in October 2022 with an order of judicial supervision pending trial, alongside an additional €350,000 French bail condition.  Dibs was rearrested on January 10, 2023, and brought before a judge, who released him the same day with a stern advisory, that if the outstanding balance of his French bail requirement was not paid in full, he would again be subject to pre-trial detention. 

Today, the Investigating Chamber of the Paris Court of Appeal rejected both Martinez and Charnier's defence counsels requests to lift the “mise en examen” (the indictment by the investigating judge in the context of a judicial investigation) and confirmed that both the former president of the Louvre and the former scientific director remain under indictment.  Martinez has been indicted for laundering and complicity in organised fraud.  Charnier has been indicted for laundering by facilitating the false justification of the origin of the property of the author of a crime, or a misdemeanour, and placed under judicial control." 

Through their lawyers, both Martinez and Charnier have indicated they will appeal today's court decision.  Both remain free on judicial supervision while their case proceeds through the French court.

The OCBC's investigation built upon collaborative investigations with the New York County - Manhattan's Antiquities Trafficking Unit, who first unravelled the network of traffickers during their investigation into the illicit trafficking of the ancient gold mummiform coffin, inscribed in the name of Nedjemankh.  Like in the New York case, the French case centers on artefacts which were laundered by means of falsified documents, in particular false invoices and export licenses.

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