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Showing posts with label Roben Dib. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Roben Dib. 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
Facebook Page. 
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. 

September 7, 2022

Wednesday, September 07, 2022 - ,,,,,,,,, No comments

5+1+9+1= 16 plundered Egyptian artefacts restituted to their rightful owners in New York


Six of these pieces were seized while on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  And like the restitutions returned to Italy yesterday, these pieces have likewise been linked to extensive criminal investigations into international antiquities-trafficking networks which have impacted multiple museum collections. Though in this case, the Egyptian artefats were handled by contemporary traffickers and looters, those whose networks have resulted in high level arrests in both France and Germany.  

Five of these antiquities, worth more than $3 million in total, were confiscated from the Metropolitan under a May 19 court order as having been looted from archaeological sites in Egypt, then eventually smuggled through Germany or the Netherlands before moving on to France.  These were sold by traffickers through the Paris-based Pierre Bergé & Associés to the Metropolitan Museum in New York.  

It should be noted that information gathered in this investigation has also resulted in the arrest of nine individuals in France including most strikingly, Jean-Luc Martinez, the former Chairman and CEO of the Musée du Louvre in Paris. 

The six artefacts from the Met's collection that were seized and are now going home are:

1 of 6 - A Monumental Stela of Kemes, ca. 1750–1720 BCE


Before the Met took down its accession page for this artefact, the provenance listed for this stela as listed in 2019 stated the following:

Purchased February 1969 by Uwe Schnell, Germany, from Heinz Herzer Gallery in Munich. Purchased in the 1970s by a private collector (probably Serop Simonian, Hamburg, Germany). Published fully in 1994, exhibited in Bonn University Art Museum 2006 through at least 2008 and published in the catalog. Acquired by the Museum at auction Pierre Bergé, 2014.

A check of open source records using the names Ewe Schnell, Heinz Herzer and Pierre Bergé & Associés combined only turns up one other antiquity, a Fayum panel painting of a woman in a blue mantle, which was also acquired by the Metropolitan Museum and one we will speak about later in this article.

Heinz Herzer, as many followers of ARCA's blog know, has his own interesting history in dealing with ancient objects with fabricated provenance.

Serop Simonian is an art dealer of Armenian origin at the fulcrum of the Met's gold-sheathed mummiform coffin of Nedjemankh restitution case as well as other pieces already seized and returned by the DANY or identified in other jurisdictions. His name comes up repeatedly in relation to suspect artefacts identified during police, and public prosecutor investigations, as well as academic forensic research.  Simonian has also been tied to numerous suspect acquisitions approved for purchase at the Louvre Abu Dhabi and is quite famous for having stirred up quite a bit of controversy in Italy regarding the sale of the disputed Artemidorus papyrus in 2004 for €2.75 million to the Compagnia San Paolo Art Foundation.  

But back to the Stela of Kemes.  On April 25, 2016, the Metropolitan's accession page for this Egyptian artefact stated the provenance quite differently.  Listing its collecting history as:

Believed to have been in the Todrous Collection, Luxor. Purchased February 1969 by Uwe Schnell, Germany, from Heinz Herzer Gallery in Munich. Purchased in the 1970s by the owner of the Tamerit Collection, Germany. Acquired by the Museum at auction Pierre Bergé, 2014.

This earlier collection history mentions a "Todrous Collection" of which there is nothing documented in open source records anywhere on the web for any other ancient objects.  A late antique textile fragment of a tunic with the inventory number T 34, from "the Tamerit collection" is on record at the at the Papyrussammlung der Österreichischen Nationalbibliothek at the Austrian National Library, though not much else.

Note that this Met record spells the collection's name Todrous, while the recently restituted golden coffin spelled the name Tawadrus, and trade journals have spelled the name Tawadros.  Later in this article you will also see the name spelled Tadross. All refer to the deceased Luxor dealer Habib Tawadros.

Christophe Kunicki's own website listed the provenance for this stela as:

Ancient european private collection, 1969.
With Tadross, Luxor, 1960’s

But stepping back even farther, outside of the Met Museum's and the seller's respective websites, the Monumental Stela of Kemes was published in the 2014 Volume 25 Number 5 issue of the journal Minerva: The International Review of Ancient Art & Archaeology.

This trade magazine listed the provenance for the stela as:

A rare Egyptian limestone chapel-stele of Kemes, superior of musicians (3), from the 13th Dynasty, circa 1770 BC (H. 73cm), in the form of a quadrangular naos resting upon a base carved with façades, was purchased from the Luxor dealer Tawadros during the 1960s. The cover-piece of the sale, it was estimated at €300,000-€400,000, but brought in a hammer price of just €200,00 from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The expert for both sales was Christophe Kunicki.

Screen Shot: Volume 25 Number 5, Page 53
Minerva: The International Review of Ancient Art & Archaeology

It is important to recognise that the involvement of the French dealer Christophe Kunicki via Pierre Bergé & Associés does not appear in any of the Metropolitan Museum's provenance records for the 13th Dynasty Egyptian limestone chapel-stele of Kemes, despite what this trade journal says and despite the Met's curators in the Egypt department having direct and frequent contact with him as he brokered pieces to the museum directly.

Purchased on 21 May 2014, the Met's record also left out the "Luxor dealer Tawadros" connection on this object.  That name, if you will recall, is also the name associated on the  now restituted 1st century B.C.E mummiform coffin, inscribed in the name of Nedjemankh.
_________


Painted Fayum panel portraits of Egypt are among the few preserved examples of ancient Greek-style paintings on panel and canvas.  Prior to its seizure, this one was on view at The Met's Gallery 137.  The woman in the blue mantle was purchased in 2013 via Pierre Bergé auction house in Paris, with Christophe Kunicki, working as expert. 

When the Metropolitan's accession page was still live, the museum first listed its provenance as:

Purchased 1968 by Uwe Schnell from Heinz Herzer Gallery, Munich. Purchased 1972 by the owner of the Tamerit Collection. Purchased by the Museum from Pierre Bergé & Associés, Paris, 2013.

This was later changed to:

Purchased 1968 by Uwe Schnell from Heinz Herzer Gallery, Munich. Purchased 1972 by Serop Simonian, Hamburg Germany, who owned it until 2013. Published 1997 and 2003, exhibited in Frankfurt in 1999 and Vienna in 2003 and published in exhibition catalogs. Consigned to Pierre Bergé & Associés by a private collector; purchased by the Museum from Pierre Bergé at auction, Paris, 2013.

In trade catalogues for this artefact Kunicki listed only “a European collection“ as the Fayum portrait's sole provenance. 

3 of 6 - Stela Dedicated to the Goddess Hathor by the Temple Singer in the Interior of Amun



Prior to its seizure, this Third Intermediate Period (Kushite) to Late Period stela was on view at The Met's Gallery 137.  This Egyptian artefact was purchased in December 2015 (accessioned in 2016) via Pierre Bergé auction house in Paris, with Christophe Kunicki, working as expert. 

Just before the Met took down this object's accession page, the museum listed the stela's provenance as:

In the Khashaba Collection, Assyut, by 1910. Permission granted to heirs to export through the Egyptian Museum Cairo for sale abroad by 1969. Exported abroad with license in 1972. Purchased by Adolf Smith (Schmidt), Germany, 1975, and descended in the family. Collection of Serop Simonian, Hamburg, Germany, 2015. Consigned to Pierre Berge & Associates by a private collector; auctioned at Pierre Bergé, Paris, December 2015, where it was purchased by the Museum. 

The 2015 Pierre Berge catalogue listed the provenance as:

Ancienne collection Sayed Pasha Khashaba, années 1910. Ancienne collection Smith, Allemagne, 1975.
Collection européenne.

Between 1910 and 1914, Sayed Bey Khashaba, AKA Sayed Pasha Khashaba, AKA Saiyid Khashaba Pasha, with other various subtle misspellings obtained from the Antiquities Service concessions to excavate at Assiut, Meir, Deir el-Gabrawi, Tihna and at Soknopaiou Nesos, in the Fayum.  I will leave whether or not this steal came from any of these places to the Egyptologists. 

4 of 6 - A face from a painted wooden Egyptian coffin


Before being sundered in two, this Egyptian face once belonged to an anthropoid wood coffin decorated with plaster and then delicately painted in polychromy.  

This artefact was purchased by the Metropolitan during the same December 2015 sale as the previous stela, (accessioned in 2016) via Pierre Bergé auction house in Paris, with Christophe Kunicki, working as expert. 

Just before the Met took down this object's accession page, the museum listed the stela's provenance as:

Collection of Robert Boyd, originally from Scotland and living in Indonesia, from about 1890, possibly acquired through Eugene Dubois. Brought to the Netherlands by Boyd's descendants about 1950. Sold in 1968 by Galerie - 2000 annex Curiosa, Rotterdam, to Mr. Jan Veneman, Oegstgeest, the Netherlands. Subsequently sold again on the art market in The Netherlands. Placed by a Dutch dealer at auction, Pierre Bergé & Associés, Paris, December 16, 2015, where it was purchased by the Museum.

5 of 6 - Exodus Painting, five elements from a painted hanging depicting the Crossing of the Red Sea


The first appearance of the Exodus Painting in five fragments, depicting the Crossing of the Red Sea, occured in a 1998 publication, Alexandria: Die erste Königsstadt der hellenistischen Welt : Bilder aus der Nilmetropole von Alexander dem Grossen bis Kleopatra VII, written by Günter Grimm.   Grimm, who died 17 September 2010, is the same egyptologist who had a working relationship with Serop Simonian regarding the authentication of the suspect “Artemidorus” and other papyri while at the Archaeologisches Institut at the  Universität Trier.

Head of the University Institute in the mid-1980s, Grimm opened a small Late Period gallery in the Institute with objects from Serop Simonian’s stock.

On 26 November 2013 these five fragments came up for auction at Hôtel Drouot via Pierre Bergé & Associés with Christophe Kunicki listed as expert. At that Paris sale, Simonian's footprint was omitted and the only provenance given was: 

6 of 6 - An 8th century BCE Egyptian bronze statuette of a Kneeling Ruler or Priest


This sixth Egyptian artefact was seized at the Metropolitan Museum of Art earlier this year when linked to 81-year-old fugitive Georges Lotfi who split his time between New York,  Paris and Tripli, Lebanon. Lotfi was charged by the New York authorities in August 2022 with criminal possession of stolen property and remains at large.   

Before its seizure in February 2022, 2006, Lotfi sold the small bronze statue to the Metropolitan with a provenance history which read:

Ex Collection Joseph Shitrit, Israel, from the 1960s. Purchased from him by Biblical Antiquities, Jerusalem, Israel, 2005. Purchased by the Museum from Georges Lotfi, Tripoli and Paris, 2006.

In actuality the Egyptian antiquity had passed first through the hands of a source country looter in 2005, then on to a part-time looter/part-time dealer in Israel named Gil Chaya, a formerly licensed antiquities dealer from Jerusalem and the purported nephew of Shlomo Moussaieff. 


In 2011, as if to brag that pieces he handled had made it into a prestigious gallery at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Chaya published a series of photos showing the bronze in his home, both before and after its restoration, posting a comment with the photo which read, "2 days after i clean it it was already in the amarna room at the MET."  This solidifies without a doubt that the provenance for this piece,as having come from the collection of Joseph Shitrit in the 1960s, is pure fabrication. 

Nine of the other Egyptian artefacts restituted in New York today are detailed in the Michael Steinhardt (Statement of Facts) document and are as follows:

1 of 9 - Vase from the Pan-Athenian Games


2 of 9 - Tel El-Yahudiyeh Beer Strainer

 

3 of 9 - Statue of a Winged Human;


4 of 9 - A carved piece of ivory depicting 12 highly-engaged figures on musical instruments


5,6,7,8,& 9 of 9 - A set of five gold and silver ornaments and plaques;


In 2017 the New York District Attorney initiated a criminal investigation into Michael Steinhardt’s acquisition, possession, and sale of antiquities.  That office's "Statement of Facts" document is the evidentiary basis for the conclusion that 180 antiquities possessed by Steinhardt constituted stolen property under New York law. 

The final object in today's restitution is a Ptolemaic gold coin.


This ancient coin was recovered as part of an ongoing investigation, which for now remains under the discretion of the prosecutor's office. 

In closing I would like to say that due diligence of looted antiquities, especially those that could be from conflict-based, or post-conflict source countries, must be meaningful and not simply and superficially plausible, in the furtherance of a purchase.  This holds true for lofty universal museums, as well as private buyers.  

Partially-documented histories in an object's collection background, do not necessarily always point to fresh loot or illegal export, but when an antiquity's background looks murky, as was obviously the case with several of these artefacts, museums and wealthy collectors need to step up their game, so they no longer perpetuate and incentivise plunder.  

Likewise, museums like the Metropolitan should not remove their accession pages, no matter how embarrassing they find them.  They should leave them up with notations that these pieces have gone home and who handled them. In doing so, they allow researchers and collectors to be more aware of the problem actors circulating material from past sales.  This also saves folks like me from having to store things away that only a few people can access. 

To conclude, ARCA would like to thank DA Bragg, Assistant District Attorney Matthew Bogdanos, Chief of the Antiquities Trafficking Unit; Assistant District Attorneys James Edwards-Lebair and Taylor Holland, Supervising Investigative Analyst Apsara Iyer, Investigative Analysts Giuditta Giardini, Alyssa Thiel, Daniel Healey, and Hilary Chassé; who alongside Special Agents John Paul Labbat and Robert Mancene of Homeland Security Investigations for the work put into these investigations.  

We would also like to thank Stephane Blumel, Major de Gendarmerie, of France’s Office central de lutte contre le trafic des biens culturels (OCBC) and Silvelie Karfeld and Nicole Pogantke of the Arts and Antiquities Crimes Unit of Germany’s Bundeskriminalamt (BKA) Kunst und Kulturgutkriminalität for their forensic investigative support in other jurisdictions.  Working collaboratively, we now know more about when, and where, and with whom, some of these recovered artefacts have circulated. 

By Lynda Albertson

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