For the first time, the United States of America has handed over a rare artefact that was smuggled from the ruins of the Com in Hebron into the United States.  Carved from ivory, this object dates to circa 800-700 BCE and features an engraving of a winged creature.

This artefact is one of the 180 seized antiquities, valued at $70 Million purchased by Michael Steinhardt which were trafficked by a total of 12 different criminal smuggling networks. 

As the result of the District Attorney of New York - Manhattan investigations compelling evidence demonstrated that this, and other pieces were stolen from their country of origin, none of which had any specific provenance that could be verified by the collector or the DA's investigative team.

According to an invoice, Steinhardt purchased this ancient artefact on 21 January 2003 with no prior provenance for $6,000 from (then) licensed Israeli dealer Gil Chaya. While Chaya had listed his dealer’s license on his invoice to Steinhardt, the artefact was never registered (as required by Israeli law) with the Israeli Antuities authorities. 

Evidence as to its origins is documented in an email sent to Michael Steinhardt’s then-Collection Manager by Gil Chaya's then-wife Lisa, which stated:

“Cosmetic Spoon is from the Hebron area, a place called El Kom, this is the area of the richest Iron age Jewish tombs (many royal).” 

Map of the Hebron district

If Chaya's statement is to be believed, this artefact may come from Khirbet el-Qom, (خربة الكوم), an archaeological site in the village of al-Kum, between Lachish and Hebron.  The Hebron district (al-Khalil) itself is located 30 km south of Jerusalem where Chaya sold pieces he sourced illegally. Hebron is the largest governorate in the Palestinian territories, not only in terms of size and population (PCBS, 2009: 55-60), but also in its richness of cultural and natural heritage and is noted for being one of the oldest continuously inhabited areas in the world, sacred to the three monotheistic religions.

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. 

In a tightly worded announcement made on 11 August 2022 the J. Paul Getty Museum revealed that it will finally relinquish its nearly-lifesize terracotta sculptural group "Seated Musician and Sirens" to the Italian authorities "after evidence persuaded the museum that the statues had been illegally excavated."  In elaborating on the three sculptures' return, directors Timothy Potts, Maria Hummer-Tuttle and Robert Tuttle of the J. Paul Getty stated "Thanks to information provided by Matthew Bogdanos and the Antiquities Trafficking Unit of the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office indicating the illegal excavation of Orpheus and the Sirens, we determined that these objects should be returned." 

While this announcement seemed like breaking news across the English speaking world, making several major news publications, it's not to those living and working on Italian cultural heritage losses. Many of those who have been following the tug of war between Italy and the Getty museum for more than a decade have felt that these objects, coming from the Magna Graecia colony of Taranto, should have already come home, and are curious as to what confirmatory evidence the New York authorities now have about these objects' illicit past and those who handled them which finally resulted in the museum's sudden release of their prized grouping. 

As backstory, the seated poet and his two standing sirens were confiscated in April 2022 as part of New York's investigation into an accused Italian antiquities smuggler. Originally brightly painted, this large-scale sculptural ensemble was purchased by John Paul Getty Sr.,  the founder of Getty Oil Company, in the spring of 1976 with no known provenance aside attesting to its collecting history, aside from the name of the Swiss bank seller.

Like with the sculpture of the poet, both of the sirens in this grouping also show signs of having been reconstructed from multiple fragments.  On the first siren, gaps can be seen in her short chiton and in her right claw.  For the second, most of the curls and the little finger of her right hand have been broken off the statue at some point in her transport out of Italy. 

But what did John Paul Getty Sr. have to say about their circulation on the art market and his collecting habits as he filled his new museum?

Prior to his death, and in ever declining health despite being deeply involved in the construction and opening of the Getty Villa,  Getty made multiple final acquisitions for his museum, with little attention towards the provenance and via several suspect brokers of ancient art who repeatedly have been accused of  trafficking in antiquities.  These purchases are outlined in his March 6, 1976 diary entry and include:  

• a 530 BCE Archaic marble head from Heinz Herzer worth 56,000 DM (Object Number: 76.AA.6);
• a Greek Attic Panatheniac Amphora Attributed to the Nichomachos Group from Nicolas Koutoulakis worth 70,000 USD (Object Number: 76.AE.5.a);
• a Statue of Togatus from Bank Leu, A.G. for 61,000 SF;
• a 180 BCE Hellenic Marble Head from Muhammed Yoganah for 50,000 USD;
• a 100–250 CE Toman silver statuette of Venus from Mathias Komor for $7500 (Object Number:76.AM.4);
• a 210 CE Front of a Sarcophagus with the Myth of Endymion from Robin Symes for 30,000 GBP (Object Number: 76.AA.8.b);  

• the group of 3 statues made in Tarentum at the end of the 4th century BCE for $550,000 from Bank Leu, A.G. (Object Numbers: 76.AD.11.1, 76.AD.11.2 and 76.AD.11.3).

Getty wrote in his dairy that all of the artefacts above, had been purchased on the recommendation of Jiří Frel, the Getty's Czech-American archaeologist.  Frel, was the J. Paul Getty Museum's first Curator of Antiquities would later be implicated in a number of controversies that tarnished the reputation of the museum.  Based on suspicions of malpractice, he was placed on paid leave from the Getty in 1984 and was allowed to quietly resign in 1986.  

After leaving the California museum, Frel, served as a consultant for wealthy European collectors, taught classes, and shuttled between residences in Budapest and Italy. At one point he even registered himself as being domiciled in Sicily, setting his residence in the palazzo of the problematic antiquities dealer Gianfranco Becchina in Castelvetrano.

Speaking with Italian journalists, New York prosecutor Matthew Bogdanos from the Manhattan District Attorney's Office's Antiquities Trafficking Unit stated that the J. Paul Getty Museum had cooperated with the DANY regarding these pieces after their seizure, but underscored that their seemingly impromptu restitution is still part of an ongoing criminal investigation being conducted by the Manhattan office in collaboration with the Comando Carabinieri per la Tutela del Patrimonio Culturale.  Bogdanos added that the museum's repatriation statement, released by the Getty, "left half of the truth out" and by that one can surmise he is referring to their seizure the previous April. 

Speaking further, Bogdanos added that this multi-year investigation started with the exploration of suspect market actors his team has spent years investigating.  The prosecutor underscored that this sculpture group's illegal removal from Italy, and export to the United States via Switzerland, involved a well known trafficking network which is known to have operated in Italy for decades.  

One member of this network who has now been publicly identified is Raffaele Monticelli, the retired elementary teacher, who gave up teaching for the more lucrative roll of middle man broker of illicit antiquities.  Monticelli has been arrested several times, and connected to multiple trafficking networks for decades.  Most recently, in late 2021, he was arrested by the Dutch authorities after having carried a looted helmet to Delft for restoration.

If we take a look at the Manhattan District Attorney's Office's Michael Steinhardt statement of facts, we can also determine, on page 36, that Raffaele Monticelli also had a relationship with Leo Mildenberg, the late Swiss numismatist for the Swiss private Bank Leu A.G., who is known to have brokered sales both for Raffaele Monticelli and for Gianfranco Becchina. 

How long has this restitution taken? 

The sculptural group first appeared as a grouping of high concern in the list of identified finds drawn up by Italy's Ministry of Culture at the beginning of 2006.  

The Taranto provenance, in addition to appearing in the digital record compiled by the J. Paul Museum, is supported by Italian scholars Pietro Giovanni Guzzo and Angelo Bottini who published the grouping purchased by the Getty in 1976. 

Furthermore, an article, published in the "Gazzetta del Mezzogiorno" dated 30 November 2006, and republished in the web magazine "patrimoniosos" stated "the comparisons with the monumental groups in terracotta found in central and southern Italy and the representations we have on the ceramic finds of Apulian production, which document the presence of decorative terracotta statues on the monumental tombs of Taranto, dispel any doubts about their origin from southern Italy "

Photographs of the pieces were also seen in 2018 in a series of black and white photos documenting portions of the restored sculptures on the 8 December 2018 RAI documentary "Petrolio - Ladri di Bellezza" produced by journalist Duilio Giammaria and Senator Margherita Corrado has repeatedly spoken in the XVIII Session of the Italian Senate about the need to bring these artefacts home.

Yet, despite all that, the 4th century BCE sculptures were (still) center stage on the ground floor of the Getty Villa in California's Pacific Palisades during the museum's  exhibition: Underworld - Imagining the Afterlife as late as October 31, 2018–March 18, 2019.   They were removed only after this investigation came to a head earlier this year.  

When Orpheus and his Sirens eventually fly home in September, they will initially go on display in the Museo dell'Arte Salvata (Museum of Rescued Art), housed in the Octagonal Hall at the Baths of Diocletian in Rome.  Perhaps by then we will be able to publicly share how the New York District Attorney's Office in Manhattan, HSI-ICE and the Italian Carabinieri moved this case successfully forward.