Sixty-one years ago today, on a hot summer morning, the fishing trawler Ferruccio Ferri, worked the waters off the coast of Fano, and accidentally hauled in an extraordinary and controversial catch.  Tangled in the vessel's nets was a magnificent bronze statue of a young athlete.  One which only later would be attributed by scholars to the great Greek sculptor Lysippos.  

Encased in barnacles yet still gleaming with history, the Victorious Youth had rested for millennia on the shallow Adriatic seabed, his whereabouts unknown until a fishing net tore him from obscurity. That single, chance, encounter would serve to ignite one of the longest and most fiercely contested restitution battles in modern cultural heritage law.  And from the moment he surfaced, the fate of Italy’s bronze became the stuff of cultural crime legend. 

His odyssey, from his first appearance on the fishing docks of Fano, through bathtubs and cabbage patches, and into the hands of smugglers, restorers, and art dealers, took years of painstaking investigation to unravel. By the time he arrived, scrubbed of incriminating barnacles, on the polished marble floors of the Getty Villa, his journey had already drawn the full attention of Italy’s police and cemented the Atleta di Fano as the nation’s most contentious and emblematic case in Italy's global fight to reclaim looted antiquities.

Maurizio Fiorilli, the country's formidable prosecutor and one of the most respected cultural heritage lawyers of his generation, devoted his life to the long and often uphill battle to see the Atleta di Fano returned to Italy.  His passing this week leaves a profound void in the country's fight for cultural justice, but the attorneys who are following in his footsteps are carrying his case forward with the same resolve, unwilling to let his work, or Italy’s claim, fade.  

Fierce in the courtroom yet meticulous in his reasoning, Fiorilli spent decades untangling legal knots, gathering evidence, and navigating the diplomatic minefields that inevitably surrounded this high-value restitution case before retiring and passing the fight to the next generation. In his 2020 book Il Caso dell’Atleta Vittorioso (The Case of the Victorious Athlete), published by Edizioni Efesto, he documented the bronze’s twisting journey and the court’s ruling in precise detail, preserving for posterity not only the established facts of the case but also the Italian judiciary’s reasoning. The result is an enduring and accurate account of one of Italy’s most contentious cultural property battles.

In 2018, Italy achieved a milestone victory when its Supreme Court (Corte di Cassazione) affirmed what Fiorilli and his successor Lorenzo d'Ascia had long maintained—that the Atleta di Fano was Italian property and had been illegally exported. The ruling upheld the decision of Magistrate Giacomo Gasparini, whose decisive 46-page ordinance had already ordered the statue’s immediate seizure and restitution, unequivocally affirming that the bronze is the inalienable property of the Italian state and restoring the confiscation order previously issued in February 2010.  

With the Court of Cassation's ruling verdict, the legal pathway was clear. The John Paul Getty Museum, it seemed, would have no choice but to comply.

And yet, sixty-one years to the day after his discovery, the Atleta di Fano remains in Malibu, a centerpiece in the Getty Villa’s collection. Over the passing decades, the museum has continued to stubbornly defend its possession, steadfastly resisting Italy’s legal claims and sidestepping the mounting body of evidence that points to the statue’s illicit removal. 

Despite definitive court rulings affirming the nation’s ownership and repeated calls for his repatriation, the Getty has stubbornly held firm, clinging to its incorrect narrative while ignoring the clear and compelling evidence which concretises the statue's theft. The result is a stalemate that has stretched on for decades, emblematic of the wider struggle over cultural property and the unwillingness of some institutions to right historical wrongs.

In a 2018 statement, Ron Hartwig The Getty Trust's Vice President of Communications called Italy’s Supreme Court ruling “disappointing,” vowing that the museum would “continue to defend our legal right to the statue.”  He further insisted that “the facts in this case do not warrant restitution of the object to Italy,” claiming that “accidental discovery by Italian citizens does not make the statue an Italian object.” 

Such statements sidestep Magistrate Giacomo Gasparini’s detailed and well-reasoned judgment of 8 June 2018, which fully endorsed earlier rulings from the Court of Pesaro acknowledging the statue’s illicit export. The judge grounded his decision in clear violations of Articles 666, 667, and 676 of the Italian Criminal Code, as well as Article 174, paragraph 3 of Legislative Decree No. 42/2004 and Article 301 of Presidential Decree No. 15/1972. He concluded that the Atleta di Fano had been illegally exported and that the Getty’s later acquisition did not qualify it as a “holder unrelated to the offense.” 

The Court of Cassation upheld this reasoning, rejecting the Getty Museum’s appeal and declaring the confiscation final—a decision further validated by the European Court for Human Rights. 

Despite the ECHR decision, the Getty maintained its stance, asserting that the “Getty’s nearly fifty-year public possession of an artwork that was neither created by an Italian artist nor found within the Italian territory is appropriate, ethical and consistent with American and international law”  invoking arguments that run counter to both the letter of the law and contemporary museum thought on what constitutes the spirit of cultural stewardship. 

Given this unbroken chain of rulings at every judicial level, in both Italian and European jurisdictions, one must ask: what is gained by prolonging the dispute? 

The Getty’s continued refusal to comply transforms a settled matter of law into an exercise in obstruction, undermining not only the authority of Italy’s judiciary but also the credibility of international cultural property agreements, not to mention the Getty's own stance on responsibility taking when it comes to problematic pieces purchased for their collections. 

Each year of inaction sends the message that legal victories in the restitution of looted art can be neutralised by institutional intransigence—a dangerous precedent for such an important museum and a disservice to the principles the Getty itself claims it strives to uphold.

Meanwhile, the city of Fano waits for the Atleta, not just an Italian treasure; but as part of the city's shared cultural patrimony. 

Objects like this ancient statue do not belong behind the walls of intransigent institutions that ignore court orders.  They belong within the landscapes and cultural narratives from which they came. For Italians this bronze is more than bronze—it is a tangible embodiment of the ancient Greek world which once vibrantly stretched along the shores of their country and shaped a population.  He is the embodiment of Le Marche's multicultural identity, and a story rooted in the soil and sea of the people of the Adriatic coast.

Fiorilli understood this better than anyone. His career was defined by victories that returned looted masterpieces to their rightful homes, from ancient vases and silver hoards to entire archives of stolen books. But for him the Atleta di Fano was different. It was this case that crystallised the need for perseverance in the face of deep-pocketed resistance.  It was also proof that the legal fight for cultural reparations is not a matter of months or years—it is a multi generational struggle which must be passed on.

As we mark the sixty-first anniversary of the athlete's discovery, and as we mourn the loss of one of Italy’s most brilliant legal minds, we must also confront the uncomfortable truth: justice delayed is justice denied. To honour Maurizio Fiorilli’s work, the call must be clear, loud, and unrelenting: the Victorious Youth must come home. 

Every day it remains in California is a day that injustice is prolonged—and a day the J. Paul Getty falls short of the reparations it owes to history.

By:  Lynda Albertson

Francis Henry Taylor, former director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, had this to say about looted art entering the United States in the Sunday edition of the New York Times on 19 September 1943: 

"Private individuals might operate in a 'black market' of antiquities in which no questions are asked, but public institutions disposing of trust funds could not very well connive in the artistic liquidation of the artistic patrimony of Europe and act as public receivers of stolen goods." 

Interesting use of language.

A year later, the US Treasury Department (TD 51072) issued a directive whose purpose was to set up a filter for cultural goods imported into the US. Those objects worth more than 5000 dollars (1944 value) would have to be registered under the aegis of the Bureau of Customs and importers would have to provide proof of "bona-fide" ownership.

In the summer of 1946, that directive was rescinded on advice from the Roberts Commission which exulted in the idea that there was no proof that looted art from Europe was streaming into the US. Since its members were gagging to resume business as usual, they persuaded the Treasury to remove America's barriers to all cultural goods and be done with it.

Question: Did the Roberts Commission members and Customs agents actually know what a looted object looked like? Did the culprit object bear unmistakable markings that betrayed the misdeeds that resulted in its misappropriation? Did the Treasury, Customs, State, US museums have lists of stolen objects? 

The answer to all of these questions is a resounding NO.

Ardelia Hall, the State Department's cultural officer who oversaw US restitution policy for the greater part of 17 years, admitted that there had only been:

22 "lots" of works of art imported into the US in 1945 and 102 in the first half of 1946 (no idea how many objects are contained in a "lot"). Despite that major increase from 1945 to 1946, the feeling was that the art market needed to breathe again, unimpinged by government regulations.

Looking back, Taylor was on to something although his self-righteous outrage was just that. No one listened, not even his own museum, not even himself in later years.

Sources: New York Times, 19 September 1943, cited in Ardelia Hall memo dated 25 September 1946 to her staff at the State Department. RG 59 Lot 62D4, Box 11, NACP.

Maurizio Fiorilli, the tireless public prosecutor whose career redefined the global struggle against looted antiquities, has passed away today leaving behind a legacy etched in justice and cultural diplomacy. He also leaves behind a wife and a son, as well as a community of scholars and colleagues across the world who were privileged to learn from his insight, integrity, and unshakable belief in the power of cultural heritage, to unite people across time and borders.

From 1965 to 2017, Fiorilli represented Italy in various courts around the world.  Through his painstaking legal battles, unwavering diplomatic negotiations, and meticulous research, Maurizio secured the return of countless Italian masterpieces: from ancient vases and silver treasures, to stolen books and monumental sculptures, restoring them to the public trust where they belong. 

Vice Avvocato Generale dello Stato, Maurizio Fiorilli, Paolo Giorgio Ferri, Deputy Prosecutor of Rome (1991-2010), and Francesco Rutelli, former Culture Minister of Italy.

But his work was not simply about the objects; it was about righting historic wrongs, repairing the wounds of cultural loss, and affirming that cultural patrimony is not a commodity, but a shared inheritance that demands protection. 

Uncompromising in his principles, Fiorilli confronted the art market and museum world's most powerful players and institutions with a clarity that could not be ignored. He reminded museums, dealers, and governments alike of their legal obligations and their deeper moral responsibilities. His approach was direct, relentless, and unwavering: stolen heritage must go home.

Yet his most emblematic fight remains unfinished. As Italy’s Vice Avvocato Generale dello Stato, Fiorilli devoted years of his work to pursuing the return of the Victorious Youth bronze, sometimes referred to as L’Atleta di Fano. An ancient Greek masterpiece hauled in by fishermen from the Italian waters in the Adriatic, it was smuggled out of the country, and eventually acquired by the J. Paul Getty Museum. 

The Victorious Youth bronze—L’Atleta di Fano just after its discovery and after restoration.

Fiorilli’s dedication was not confined to transatlantic battles abroad. He played a pivotal role in confronting cultural crimes at home, most notably in the Girolamini Library scandal in Naples, which uncovered the systematic theft of thousands of rare books under then-director Marino Massimo De Caro. In pursuing this case, Fiorilli reaffirmed that the fight for cultural heritage must defend against threats both outside and within, and that no one, no matter their position, or political friendships, stands above accountability when entrusted with a nation’s treasures.

Known as “Il Bulldog” for his unbreakable grip on the most complex cases, Fiorilli’s victories were more than legal successes.  They were acts of cultural restoration and moral reparation.  His guiding conviction; that cultural heritage is humanity’s shared memory, now resonates with even greater urgency. And with his passing, Italy and ARCA mourn the loss of a master negotiator, a moral compass, and one of the most formidable defenders of history our generation will ever know.

In 2007, Maurizio Fiorilli convinced the J. Paul Getty Museum to return 39 works excavated in Italy, including a 2,300-year-old vase depicting the Rape of Europa. At the time of his passing, he was still waiting for the museum to do the right thing regarding the "Getty" Bronze.  "Our successes have always been a team effort and are the result of patient and skillful work in "cultural diplomacy." It's been a challenge of dossiers, counter-dossiers, reports, analyses, descriptions, lengthy, scathing correspondence with buyers who deny any responsibility, and complicated face-to-face meetings to convince collectors and museums to return the stolen goods. Collection directors always make a point of ownership: "It's mine," they repeat, "it's proven, look how much I paid for it." We, on the other hand, make a point of culture." --M. Fiorilli 2014

The Getty still refuses to relinquish the Victorious Youth. To honour Maurizio Fiorilli’s memory, the world should demand its return—and continue his fight for justice, and the rightful homecoming of stolen heritage everywhere.

By:  Lynda Albertson

In 1675, Jesuit scholar Zacharias Traber published Nervus Opticus Sive Tractatus Theoricus in Tres Libros in Vienna, a richly illustrated treatise in three parts—optics, catoptrics, and dioptrics—engraved by copperplate engraver Tobias Sadeler. The work not only explored the science of light, reflection, and refraction, but also recorded unique historical descriptions of the Archbishop’s garden in Bratislava. Issued with two different dedications, only a very few copies of the edition dedicated to Archbishop György Szelepcsényi survive today in Hungarian public collections.

During World War II, one such copy, held in the library of the Eötvös József Collegium in Budapest, is believed to have been illegally removed. For decades, it seems, their loss went unnoticed.  

On 21 March 2022, a researcher alerted the Collegium’s library to a possible sighting: a copy of Nervus Opticus matching their missing volume was listed for sale online by a New York antiquarian bookseller for USD 19,500. Reaching out to the bookshop revealed tghat the book had been purchased at a Munich auction in 2007 and that they too were involved in trying to determine the Jesuit manuscript's prior circulation. 

Although the Civil Code (Act V of 2013) of Hungarian law, excludes the possession of protected cultural property illegally removed from libraries, it also states that ownership over them can be acquired if a museum document stolen from a library is purchased commercially and in good faith (for example at an auction). 

To establish the manuscript’s identity, the ELTE University Library and Archives, the legal successor to the Jesuit college library in Nagyszombat needed to prove their ownership of the object in question. 

To do so, when it comes to books and manuscripts, there are several ways in which a library might be able to establish its ownership of a volume.  They could look at handwritten possessor entries, the ex libris, which is usually glued to the inside cover of the book.  They could look for the manuscript's super ex libris (supralibros) with a coat of arms or monogram placed on the binding of the book, or compare  the ownership stamp (stock stamp).  In addition thay could look for entries in the Library's inventory book, which might also provide information that could be decisive in ownership issues. 

To do so, they requested detailed images from the cooperating book dealer. These in turn  revealed a possessor entry (“Colleg. S Jesu, Tyr: 1675”) and some traces of an ownership stamp. 

Multispectral imaging then confirmed that a stamp of the Eötvös József Collegium had been deliberately removed, and that the flyleaf and endpaper bearing other ownership marks had been replaced.  Archival research traced the manuscript’s history: from Nagyszombat, where the Jesuit college library held seven copies in 1690, to Buda in 1777, leaving one copy behind in a Catholic high school in Pozsony, which eventually entered the Collegium’s library. There it remained until its disappearance, most likely during the 1940s.

In 2025, following further confirmatory investigations conducted by New York authorities, the Antiquities Trafficking Unit of the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office formally seized the manuscript.  This being its first step in its formalised return to the Library.  

On 23 July 2025, the manuscript Nervus Opticus Sive Tractatus Theoricus in Tres Libros was ceremoniously handed over in New York by Assistant District Attorney Matthew Bogdanos to Péter Szijjártó, Hungary's Foreign Minister.  The minister noted that this is the first known case of a stolen Hungarian antiquity being recovered with the direct involvement of the New York District Attorney’s Office, "a gesture he called deeply appreciated and symbolically significant"

For their own part the DA’s office underscored that advanced imaging technology was key to uncovering the removed stamp and proving the manuscript’s origins and rightful ownership, closing an eight-decade chapter in the history of a rare and important scientific work, and restoring it at last to its rightful home.

Evgeni Svetoslavov Mutafchiev flew to Switzerland from Dubai on Sunday, July 6th.  His visit to Zurich wasn’t to buy Swiss chocolates. Rather, his discreet arrival marked the final step in removing a legal axe hanging over his head—charges filed in relation to a New York investigation into antiquities trafficking.

On July 7th, he surrendered, was arrested, arraigned. He pled guilty on July 8th to a State of New York charge of conspiracy in the fifth degree (N.Y. Penal Law §105.05[1]). During his hearing, he also agreed to waive his right to appeal his conviction and confirmed having forfeited $750,000, an amount representing his proceeds of crime that the New York District Attorney’s Office had reasonably proven.

Mutafchiev, more commonly known as Eugene Alexander, is a dual Bulgarian and American citizen who was born in Varna, Bulgaria, along the Black Sea. Before becoming entangled in the illicit antiquities trade, he once worked as a reporter for a local television station in his hometown, before moving on to a public relations role at the city’s National Archaeological Museum.

That all changed in 1984 when he moved to Munich and began working as an “art and antiquity investment consultant.” In 1998 he relocated again, this time to the United States, where he went on to earn a Master’s degree from Cleveland State University and a Doctorate from New York University. Now holding academic credentials centring on Greek and Roman history, Alexander quickly became involved in cultural property crime, emerging as a key person of interest in a sprawling New York investigation targeting the circulation of looted artefacts in the state, while various other countries looked into his financial flows as a suspect in money laundering.

New York Court filings and open-source analysis indicate that Alexander leveraged both his family ties and connections with senior government officials and TIM—which, according to law enforcement and the U.S. State Department, appears to be an organized crime syndicate incorporated as a holding company based in Varna that increasingly looks like Multigroup in its efforts to penetrate as many illegal sectors as possible. 

Alexander also actively circulated large numbers of looted antiquities, facilitating false provenance for some of the high-value objects he handled which were, then laundered forward through European and US ancient art dealers before being sold to wealthy collectors. To accomplish this, Alexander made use of a network of shell corporations and offshore banks identified as operating in Malta, Liechtenstein, the Crown Dependency of Jersey, and the Seychelles.

One of the most notable objects the New York hedge fund mogul bought from him was this1400–1200 BCE larnax—a small chest for human remains, painted with aquatic motifs.  The artefact was crafted in workshops near Rethymno on the island of Crete, a region which unfortunately as long been a frequent target of clandestine excavations and looting.  

Steinhardt paid Alexander $575,000 for the Larnax via Seychelles-based FAM Services via SATABANK —a Malta-based financial institution.  SATABANK was wholly owned by two entities (Christo Giorgiev and a private limited company), with Alexander being a 19.8% owner of SATABANK. In 2020, the European Central Bank revoked SATABANK’s banking license due to an on-going investigation into its money laundering.  This particular artefact was restored by Flavio Bertolin who reconstructed the Larnax from fragments.  It also appears in a photograph recovered from Steinhardt’s records which showed the Minoan container when it was freshly looted and still broken into several large fragments. 

As part of his trafficking scheme, Alexander cultivated sources across Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean, especially in Greece and Turkiye, where source country looters sent him photographs of freshly excavated artefacts. Once selected, the illicit material was then smuggled into Germany or the UK, where he arranged for the objects to be cleaned and restored, either by Flavio Bertolin in Munich or Darren Bradbury in London.  In some instances, plundered material would be  authenticated through thermoluminescence (TL) testing, conducted by Ralf Kotalla, who also supplied authenticity certificates to other suspect dealers with ties to illicit trafficking, including Gianfranco Becchina.

Once restored and prepared for market, many of Alexander's looted artefacts circulated with Fuat Üzülmez, a Turkish Syriac dealer born in Mardin, Turkye who ran Artemis Gallery in Munich.  Other were circulated with Hubert Lanz of Numismatik Lanz in Austria, or in the United States via Ward & Company, Fine Art in New York.  Dozens of these fresh finds were given vague provenance statements, such as “ex Geneva private collection, acquired in the early 1990s,” or, less frequently, “acquired in the early 1980s.”

Alexander's connection to trafficked material surfaced publicly according to a stipulation dated 6 September 2023, when Michael Ward agreed to plead guilty to Criminal Facilitation in the Fourth Degree (N.Y. Penal Law §115.00[1]).  As part of his plea agreement, he voluntarily surrendered 44 antiquities, valued at approximately $22 million, which he, or the District Attorney, had identified as having been sold, consigned, or previously held by Eugene Alexander. Ward also agreed to fully and truthfully cooperate with the prosecutor's continued investigation into Eugene Alexander's illegal activity.

According to Ward's charging document, during a multi-national investigation conducted in cooperation with the Manhattan ATU, US Homeland Security - HSI, and law enforcement units in Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom into Eugene Alexander, Michael Ward, and others cultural property crimes, German authorities carried out a raid on Alexander's apartment on 23 February 2022 in Germany.  There, they recovered, among many objects, Alexander's computers and various data drives.  On these officers recovered a series of photographs that various looters had sent to the dealer, many of which included depictions of plundered antiquities in a freshly looted state, prior to their being cleaned or restored. 

Over the course of this multi-year investigation, the Manhattan DA’s Antiquities Trafficking Unit (DANY) conducted a total of six seizures from Alexander, recovering an additional 67 looted antiquities which the DA estimates are worth $31 million. This brought the estimated total value of material seized in the US and connected to this single individual to just over $100 million.

Despite the damages done to the world's historical record, Alexander’s arrival to Switzerland this summer was low key and voluntary, coordinated in cooperation with the Manhattan DA's office and his defense attorneys, Elliot Sagor and Roger Stavis of Mintz & Gold’s White Collar Criminal Defense and Investigations practice.  Unlike other defendants wanted in New York in relation to other DANY antiquities investigations—such as Subhash Kapoor and Georges Lotfi—Alexander was not subject to an INTERPOL Red Notice, a request to law enforcement worldwide to locate and provisionally arrest a person pending extradition, surrender, or similar legal action.  Instead, his quiet arrival in Zurich signalled that broader cooperating negotiations were already in progress with US authorities, ultimately culminating in his trip to Switzerland, his guilty plea and sentencing.

What Comes Next?

The Eugene Alexander case sheds light not only on this interconnected trafficker's operations, but on the systemic mechanisms, within conservation sectors, the art market and in banking, that allow freshly looted illicit antiquities to circulate, via complex supply chains, while profits made by their sales can be channelled fluidly across borders and jurisdictions to offshore banks.

With Alexander's Zurich sojourn complete and his 8 July 2024 conviction confirmed, the New York District Attorney’s Office has officially concluded its case against him, as well as the state's case against his US associate, Michael Ward, who was convicted a year and a half earlier and who died this year on 19 March 2025.

To date, Alexander has not publicly addressed any of his legal entanglements, nor has he explained why, at least for a while, he elected to reside in Dubai—a known haven for individuals seeking to avoid extradition to Europe and the US. 

Authorities with Spain's Policía Nacional have dismantled a sophisticated antiquities trafficking network operating across Córdoba, Jaén, and Seville. As part of the investigation, code-named Operación Prados, Spain’s National Police arrested seven individuals suspected of orchestrating an illicit operation that trafficked thousands of archaeological artifacts—including coins, brooches, oil lamps, and other freshly looted material.

The investigation began in March 2023, when police monitoring online sales activities identified a suspicious numismatics business who is a member of the  Asociación Numismática Español based in Mairena del Aljarafe, just outside Seville. The business advertised widely across online auction platforms such as MA Shops, vCoins, Biddr, and eBay, as well as through its own virtual storefront. Investigators were alerted by a telling detail: several coins listed for sale still bore traces of soil, suggesting they had been recently unearthed—likely through illegal excavation. If confirmed, their sale and export would constitute a crime against historical heritage under Article 323 of Spain’s Penal Code which states:

1. Whoever causes damage to assets of historical, artistic, scientific, cultural or monumental value, as well as to archaeological, land and underwater sites shall be punished with a prison sentence of six months to three years or a fine of twelve to twenty-four months. Acts of plunder of the aforementioned sites shall be punished with the same penalty.

Following a lengthy investigation, authorities determined that the seven individuals had, over a five-year period, built a pipeline of looted material sourced directly from illegal metal detectorists working from unknown excavation sites across Andalusia. These items were then marketed and sold to collectors across the globe, without the mandatory cultural export permits, in direct violation of Spain’s national heritage laws.

According to a statement issued by the Ministry of the Interior, the group used shipping hubs in Linares and Lucena to distributethousands of ancient coins and antiquities to buyers in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, the United Kingdom, and the United States. In order to evade detection, they routinely mislabeled parcels as “gifts,” avoiding the formal customs clearance process and lowering the risk of inspection.

In a coordinated police operation, simultaneous raids were carried out at three locations—Mairena del Aljarafe, Linares, and Lucena—resulting in the arrest of three couples and one employee. Authorities seized approximately 3,000 artefacts, 73 silver coins, and €37,625 in cash. Prior to these arrests, law enforcement had already intercepted a single outgoing shipment containing 22 bags with more than 1,900 archaeological items.

In total, investigators estimate that the network generated as much as half a million euros in illicit revenue over the past five years.

This Spanish operation highlights the increasingly sophisticated mechanisms behind modern heritage exploitation.  Looters using metal detectors in archaeologically rich regions continue to funnel artefacts directly into the global antiquities market through well-connected criminal networks.  These networks, in turn, rely on e-commerce platforms that offer little to no vetting—creating the perfect storm where illicit cultural property can be laundered and sold across international jurisdictions with minimal scrutiny.

The practice of mislabeling parcels as “gifts” further illustrates the challenge of tracking both the physical and financial flows tied to looted cultural goods.

Why this matters: 

Spain’s archaeological heritage—spanning from prehistoric settlements to Roman cities—is a shared cultural legacy. When artefacts are removed without documentation or context, we lose irreplaceable pieces of history. This crackdown by Spanish authorities sends a clear message: stolen heritage will be pursued, recovered, and protected.

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. 

Following a two-year investigation, culminating in a coordinated effort between Spain’s Guardia Civil and Italy’s Carabinieri Command for the Protection of Cultural Heritage, 62 valuable cultural assets were repatriated to Spain today under the banner of Operation Altarpiece in a ceremony held at the “Swiss Guards Hall” of the Royal Palace in Turin.  The investigation was directed by Investigating Court No. 1 of Marbella, which worked closely with Eurojust to coordinate international legal cooperation. 

The case began in June 2023 when the Guardia Civil received intelligence via Europol’s Secure Information Exchange Network Application (SIENA), alerting them to the seizure in Italy of a carved polychrome and gilded wood altarpiece, with scenes of the Passion of Christ from the 16th century.  This religious work of art had been illegally exported from Andalusia five years after Spanish authorities had denied its earlier export request, made by the now-deceased German couple who had been residing in Marbella (Málaga).

Under Spanish law, cultural properties of this nature—i.e., artworks over 100 years old, included in the General Inventory of Movable Property of Historical Heritage, or valued above specific monetary thresholds (ranging from €15,000 for drawings, engravings, and photographs to €150,000 for paintings)—require a definitive or temporary export permit.  The seized altarpiece in question lacked any of these necessary authorisations.

As the investigation expanded, authorities focused on tracing how this altarpiece had been removed from Spain and transported into Italy and whether the object's holders had trafficked any additional artworks out of the country.  During their subsequent investigation, officers determined that over 90 cultural objects had been exported from Marbella using a non-specialised transport company which moved Renaissance panel paintings, some configured as triptychs, sculptures, vases, tapestries, French 17th and 18th century furniture, and works attributed to artists such as Amedeo Modigliani, Auguste Rodin, and Pieter Brueghel, (the younger).

Italian investigators located many of these works in the villa of Günter Hans Ludwig Kiss, on the shores of Lake Maggiore in Lesa, the same home where the altarpiece had been recovered.  Other works were traced to art galleries, as well as private residences, in Genoa and Milan.   Still others had been sold onward and re-exported from Italy to a third country.  Kiss, the controversial German garbage magnate, was once listed in the top 300 list of rich businessmen in Switzerland, and died, at the age of 81, on 04 February 2023, a few weeks after his wife's own death.  

While alive, the German entrepreneur was involved in numerous legal cases: both civil and criminal for his waste management activities. In the 1990s, he was placed trial for environmental crimes committed with the commissioning of a Thermoselect plant.  Having sold their properties in Switzerland and Spain, and without heirs, the Kiss assets, contested by creditors, were slated to go to the Kan Foundation, a non-profit organisation only established in the tax haven of Liechtenstein in 2023.

As a result of thier line of inquiry, the Spanish court issued multiple European Investigation Orders to judicial authorities in Italy and Germany, along with an International Letter of Request to the United Kingdom, seeking the restitution of the works located in each of the aforementioned jurisdictions.

On Thursday, 16 December 2021, at least two of the seized paintings on view during today's restitution ceremony had been consigned for sale to Cambi Casa d'Aste for an Old Masters sale held at Castello Mackenzie in Genova (Italy).  The first being this early 16th century painting, representing the Madonna and Child with Saint Anne believed to have been painted by members of the Antwerp School, the painting is estimated to be worth between €30,000 to €50,000. 

and this 16th century, 'Triptych depicting the Holy Family and angels' also from the Antwerp School values at between €20,000 and €30,000.

Given that no provenance details accompanied either advertisement for this auction,  one also needs to look closely, not only at the business mogul Günter Hans Ludwig Kiss, but at the origins of these Antwerp School works in relation to World War II-era claims. 

No rules followed, too few questions asked

This restitution case underscores the importance of applying for, and legally obtaining, export permits for cultural property when transferring art works from one country to another.  Legal requirements such as these are designed to prevent the illicit removal of historically or culturally significant objects, and allows national cultural authorities to assess each item’s provenance and artistic importance to the nation prior to authorising removal. 

The investigation also highlights the lack of consistent due diligence on the part of some art market resellers in verifying the legal status of artworks before accepting them for purchase or agreeing to take them under consignment. 

Due diligence is not simply best practice—it is essential for safeguarding a nation’s heritage and ensuring transparency and accountability within the international art trade.  Institutions and private dealers should be prepared to ask potential sellers and consignors tough questions, and to require proof of proper documentation, including export permits when required, in order to prevent inadvertently facilitating the sale of illicit cultural property.  

Failure to do so, or intentionally turning a blind eye, exposes collectors, art dealers, and auction houses to reputational damage and undermines collective efforts to protect cultural heritage from being lost to illicit markets.

By:  Lynda Albertson

This Regulation applies only to cultural goods created or discovered outside of the European Union.

The regulation was introduced in response to:

• Increasing international concerns about looted antiquities (particularly from conflict zones like Syria, Iraq*),
• The use of cultural objects to fund terrorism,
• The lack of uniform rules across EU Member States regarding the import of cultural goods.

1. Import Licences

From the opulence of Louis XIV to the refined lines of the Directoire style, ARCA rarely turns its lens on the scandals of the antique furnishings world.  But today, we wrap up a controversy that has shaken one of France’s most revered collecting spheres—one that once proudly occupied centre stage at the Biennale des Antiquaires.

Georges Pallot, known to his colleagues as "Bill" was long regarded as a preeminent authority on 18th-century French royal furniture.  Until his court ruling this week.

Yesterday, the flamboyant furniture expert was convicted, alongside his cohort, Bruno Desnoues, who ran a famous furniture restoration workshop in the Saint-Antoine district of Paris, of participating in a multi-million-euro forgery scheme that deceived major institutions as well as elite collectors.  

Among their victims: the Palace of Versailles and the brother of the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Abdullah Al Thani, then the owner of the Hôtel Lambert on Paris's Ile Saint-Louis as well as an heir to the Hermès family.  Each were unwitting purchasers of exquisitely crafted fakes, crafted from authentic 18th‑century chair frames with new components, gilding, upholstery, and forged stamps to produce extraordinarily convincing pieces mimicking designs tied to Marie Antoinette, Madame du Barry, and other royal figures.

Despite the seriousness of these offences, the verdict handed down by the Pontoise court on 11 June 2025 was strikingly lenient.  Following a full confession in which Pallot admitted “I was the head and Desnoues was the hands, ” the art advisor  claimed that he and Desnoues had started the scam for fun, to see whether they could pull it off. 

For his role as the mastermind of the fraud plot, Pallot was sentenced to four years in prison, with 44 months suspended.  The court also imposed a €200,000 fine and banned the fraudster from working in his chosen profession in France for a period of five years.  Yet, he retains his Paris apartment, and by his own admission, found the judge's fine “harsh”—a remark that rings hollow against the millions in illicit gains.

Desnoues, the hands behind the plot, was sentenced to three years in prison, with 32-months of that sentence likewise being suspended.  In practice, the only time either man spent behind bars was the four months in pretrial detention shortly after they were charged.  

Laurent Kraemer and his Kraemer Gallery, accused of deception by gross negligence were acquitted however the director still has other charges pending for a series of allegedly fake Boulle and Louis XIV furniture pieces.

All and all, not what I would call a severe deterrent, nor one which might serve to discourage others from exploiting similar high-stakes opportunities in the art world. 

What these verdicts underscore, however, is the glaring disparity between the immense profits that can be made through art crime and the disproportionately lenient penalties imposed on those who orchestrate them

How crime, at least in this instance, pays.

• Financial Gain vs. Legal Pain
  Pallot and Desnoues pocketed substantial sums of money before their fraud was exposed. A four-month custodial sentence is inconsequential when weighed against such profits. 

• Institutional Embarrassment
  Versailles, trusted the expert’s authority unquestioningly and later audits exposed glaring inadequacies in their due diligence processes, each vulnerabilities that the fraudsters leveraged to their own advantage.

• Insufficient Deterrents
  Pallot’s audacious dismissal of the scheme as a “breeze” underscores the minimal personal risk involved. With modest fines, no fresh prison time, and the ability to resume life unscathed, the art world remains an opportunistic path for those who want to bend the rules. 

This scandal also exposes deep systemic flaws that continue to plague the art world. Chief among them is the issue of expert impunity, allowing trusted experts to exploit their status to manipulate the market, thereby undermining the entire foundation of scholarly authentication and public trust. 

Exacerbating the problem is a glaring lack of rigorous due diligence across even the most esteemed institutions. The Palace of Versailles, for example, was shown to have inadequate safeguards for detecting forgeries—especially when those fabrications are engineered by individuals within their trusted circle. This case underscores how easily institutional confidence can be exploited when internal checks are either weak or absent.

Without robust financial and reputational consequences, such cases risk reinforce a dangerous precedent: that in the art world, crime can pay. 

By: Lynda Albertson