This spectacular theft occurred at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam during the predawn hours of Sunday, April 14, 1991.  It is considered to be the largest art heist in the Netherlands subsequent to World War II, as well as the fastest recovery time for stolen works of art from an important collection.

Twenty paintings by the Dutch master Vincent van Gogh, including one of his iconic Still Life: Vase with Fifteen Sunflowers (1889) were stolen from the museum by thieves; one who concealed himself in the gallery the previous evening and another, who was let his accomplice into the museum during the theft.

At the time of the robbery, the value of the stolen art was estimated at USD $500 million. 

Listed below are all the artworks taken during the theft, some with photos.

At the time of the robbery, two night watchmen heard sounds coming from inside the museum at approximately 3 AM local time, indicating that there was in intruder in the building.  Upon investigating, they were confronted by a man brandishing a pistol and wearing a balaclava to disguise his face.  This individual then forced the guards to disable the museum's security devices and allowed his accomplice access into the museum.  

Both thieves then reportedly confined the guards before setting about removing the twenty works of art.  In less than an hour they had filled two expandable garment bags to the brim with the Dutch Post-Impressionist artist's works.  The criminals then used one of the guards cars as their getaway vehicle, scrunching all the artworks inside before hopping in with them to make a fast get-away.

At 4:48 am, one minute after the thieves departed, the guards called-in the robbery to Amsterdam authorities. A grey Volkswagen Passat, matching the description of the guard's stolen car was located unlocked and abandoned at the site of the Amstel train station at 5:23 A.M.  A search of the car, revealed that all the paintings were accounted for, all still stuffed into the garment bags the thieves had used when removing them from the museum.

Three paintings, including Wheatfield with Crows, were severely damaged. 

Three months later, on July 18, 1991, authorities announced that they had arrested four Dutchmen for their roles in the botched predawn April robbery. One of the four men charged turned out to be one of the two security guards working inside the museum at the time of the theft.   A second accomplice was a former employee of the museum's security firm.  The two remaining joint principles to the crime were the apparent masterminds, each of whom had made promises to the museum insider and former contractor that they would receive a substantial fee for facilitating the robbery. 

Subsequent to the arrests, police stated the thieves had abandoned the paintings in the guard's car and fled the scene when their second get-away vehicle failed to arrive, apparently due to a flat tire. 

All four perpetrators were sentenced to prison terms.

By: Lynda Albertson

On May 19, 1998 Rome's prestigious Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna was robbed just after the 10 pm closing time. Armed with guns, three thieves entered the museum just before closing time. Moving about the galleries barefoot and having donned gloves and balaclavas to hide their identities, the thieves then stormed the control room.

There they gagged two of the three female guards and forced a third to disable the museum's security system and hand over its accompanying CCTV footage. They then locked all three security staff in a bathroom before proceeding to the Impressionist hall.  

L'Arlésienne, 1889 (one of five versions)

by Vincent Van Gogh  (unsigned)

oil on canvas, 60x50 cm

Completed in  Saint-Rémy

Le Jardinier, October 1889

by Vincent Van Gogh (unsigned)

oil on canvas, 61 x 50 cm

Completed in  Saint-Rémy

and

Cabanon de Jourdan, 1906

by Paul Cézanne

oil on canvas 65 x 81 cm

The last artwork completed by the artist before his death in Aix-en-Provence

From the beginning of their investigation art crime detectives in Italy suspected that there had to be an insider working with the thieves; someone who had firsthand knowledge of who would be working in the museum that evening and possibly familiarity with the museums security apparatus. 

Law enforcement officers with the Carabinieri Tutela Patrimonio Culturale and the Squadra Mobile di Roma began their investigation by conducting a prolonged examination of all 160 individuals who worked at the museum.  They needed to narrow down who might be inclined to collaborate with criminals or who might benefit from the proceeds to be made from stolen art. 

Tentative suspects were kept under surveillance and as the squad honed in on each of their culprits, phones were tapped.  Police bided their time for more than a month listening and analysing information as they gathered evidence on who and how many people were involved and most importantly, just where the paintings might have been stashed. 

While they waited, they learned that some of the suspects had met one another serving time in a Brussels prison, one of them for a violent robbery of a postal truck. This further helped to paint a clear picture that the group was not beyond the use of violence.  

Proceeding carefully officers were sure that the theft was not merely an opportunistic crime by an impulsive group but a crime carried out by a individuals who knew one another well and who weren't afraid of getting their hands dirty.

As days passed the thieves faced difficulties finding a buyer.  The criminals began to get irritable and at one point started fighting amongst themselves.  In one instance one of the suspects was so sloppy that he openly complained during a tapped phone conversation that he knew the police were on to them. 

As the band of criminals began to fray law enforcement knew they had to move quickly before they completely unravelled and did something desperate.  The investigators' intel also revealed that the paintings had been split up. Van Gogh's Le Jardinier and Cézanne's Cabanon de Jourdan had been brought back to Rome after the purported sale fell through, while L'Arlésienne was left behind in Turin possibly as collateral for the one criminal not originally from Rome.   

But where? 

After 48 days, investigators decided they had sufficient evidence to identify probable locations for the three paintings and the ability to make simultaneous arrests of all accomplices at the same time.  This was done to ensure that no one got away and that no one could shift the artworks to a new hiding spot or destroy them to avoid prosecution. 

On July 5, 1998 officers moved in and arrested 8 suspects, some with a small arsenal of firearms. The motley team was a hodgepodge of run-of-the-mill criminals including a husband and wife team, one of whom was the insider at the museum.  Others in the band seemed the type only Hollywood characters are made of. 

During a raid of one apartment in the periphery of Rome Van Gogh's Le Jardinier and Cézanne's Cabanon de Jourdan were recovered in good condition One painting had been crudely packaged in a cardboard box and hidden under a bed. The other had been wrapped in a blanket and stuffed in a closet.

L'Arlésienne was recovered in an apartment in Turin along with 6 weapons, including a machine gun. 

The criminals convicted and their sentences imposed

Oeneus Ximenes - considered the mastermind of the theft received a sentence of 8 years imprisonment

Roberto Petruzzi - received a sentence of 8 years imprisonment

Stefania Viglongo - the museum insider received a sentence of 8 years imprisonment

Maurizio Possetto - received a sentence of 7 years imprisonment 

Claudio Trevisan - received 6 years and 4months imprisonment 

Anna Rita Sinti (daughter of Alexander Sinti and the suprisingly young partner of Ximenes) - received 4.5 years imprisonment

Alessandro Sinti - (father of Anna Rita Sinti) - received 3 years and 4 months imprisonment.  

Alfonso Di Febio (husband of Viglongo) - received 2 years and 8 months imprisonment.

By Lynda Albertson 

At around 12:30 in the morning on June 28, 1990 three early Van Gogh paintings were stolen from the Het Noordbrabants Museum in Den Bosch, Netherlands. s-Hertogenbosch is the actual official name of the city, but colloquially almost everybody calls the city Den Bosch, which translates in English to mean 'the Duke’s Forest' .

The artworks taken were: 

Brabant Peasant, seated Study for the Potato Eaters (also known as Farmer's Wife Seated)  Dec 1884 - April 1885

oil on paper on panel 36 X 26.5 cm

Completed in Nuenen

Digging Farmer (also known as Digging Farmer's Wife), 1885-1887

oil on canvas, 37.5 X 25.7 cm

Completed in Nuenen

Wheels of the Mill, Genneper, 1884

oil on canvas,  61.5 x 80.5 cm

Completed in Nuenen

Van Gogh painted about a quarter of his entire body of works, including these three artworks, in Nuenen, less than 20 miles from the Het Noordbrabants Museum.

On the morning of the theft, the culprit(s) profited from a relatively sophisticated, but nonfunctioning, alarm system.  Set to go off when it sensed movement, on the day of the theft the system failed to signal the unauthorised entry and failed to signal a malfunction in the sensors.  The burglar(s) entered the unmanned museum undetected simply by breaking an unalarmed ground floor window which in turn allowed access the museum's collection.

Once inside the criminal(s) quickly absconded with the three early 19th-Century Dutch Impressionist artworks.  At the time of their theft they were estimated to be worth from USD $ 2.7 million to $5.4 million.

The theft marked the third theft of Van Gogh works in just two short years. 

All was not lost however.  One year later, after an anonymous tip-off, The Digging Farmer was found in a safe deposit box rented under a false name in a bank located in Eeklo, a Belgian municipality in the Flemish province of East Flanders .

The other two paintings, Brabant Peasant, seated and Wheels of the Mill, Genneper, were returned in relatively good condition to the museum via a prosecutor, Mr. D. van der Bel Middelburg working in The Hague and a lawyer representing a defendant in a totally unrelated case from Amsterdam. Listed in the judicial records as simply an 'informer' the defendant was not believed to have been one of the original thieves but rather an opportunist who had hoped to influence the outcome of his own case by providing information on other criminal's handiwork.

By: Lynda Albertson

At a time in the late 80s when Van Gogh's paintings were listed on the "Top 10 Prices Paid for Paintings" at two of the world's two premiere auction houses, Christie's and Sotheby's, stealing Vincent's artwork might have seen like a fast way to make money. Van Gogh's touchingly poignant Irises, painted in 1889 during the last year before his death at the asylum at Saint-Rémy had just sold (on November 11, 1987) for $53.9 million, the highest price ever paid for an artwork in an auction at that time. 

Perhaps with this in mind, and perhaps because the Kröller-Müller Museum holds the second-largest collection of the Post-Impressionist master in the world, with almost 90 paintings and over 180 drawings attributed to Vincent Van Gogh, the thieves decided to hit the Otterlo museum on December 12, 1988. TO commit their crime, they entered the museum by breaking one of the windows and then made off with three artworks worth an estimated €113 million euros.

The works stolen included: 

The second of three painted sketches titled 

De aardappeleters, (the potato eaters), April - May 1885

oil on canvas mounted on panel, 73.9 x 95.2 cm

Completed in Nuenen

Loom with Weaver, 1885

oil on canvas, 70 x 85 cm

Completed in Nuenen

and

Four Cut Sunflowers, August-September 1887

oil on canvas,  60.0 x 100.0 cm

Completed in Paris 

Loom with Weaver was returned, possibly as a gesture for negotiation in April 1989.  The two thieves then tried to exact a $2.5 million ransom for the remaining two paintings which led to the police recovering the works on July 13, 1989. 

While no ransom was paid, the artworks did sustain damages.  Two men were sentenced to 3.5 and 5 years respectively for their roles in the crime.

By: Lynda Albertson

In the early morning hours of May 20, 1988, the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, located on the Museumplein, was hit with its one and only museum theft to date. The value of the stolen works, which became part of the collection between 1949 and 1951, were estimated by the museum's director Wilhelmus Beeren at the time to be between 25 to 100 million Dutch gilder, the currency of the Netherlands from the 17th century until 2002. 

The Stedelijk was equipped with an electronic alarm system but at the time of the break-in the museum was unmanned.  The alarm went off at five in the morning which prompted the private security service hired by the museum, and who monitored the alarm system from a central office, to contact the Amsterdam police 20 minutes later.

Upon arriving on the scene, law enforcement found a broken window. During an inspection of the museum after the break-in, staff reported that three paintings had been taken from a room close to the entrance of the museum. 

The paintings stolen during the burglary were:

Vase with Carnations, 1886 

by Vincent van Gogh 

oil on canvas, 46.0 x 37.5 cm

Bouteilles et pêches (Bottles and Peaches), 1890

By Paul Cézanne

oil on canvas, 49 x 51 cm

and

La maison du maître Adam Billaud à Nevers (The House of Master Adam Billaud at Nevers) 1874 

By Johan Barthold Jongkind

oil on canvas, 56.5 x 42.5 cm

Interviewed shortly after the theft, Director Beeren stated that the theft could have been done by experts perhaps on a "made to Order" basis.  His hypothosis was based upon the fact that the museum contained many other, more valuable works of art and given the thief also chose to make-off with the paintings' frames. 

Eleven days later, on 31 May 1988, all three paintings were recovered undamaged by police, who had posed as potential buyers interested in Post-Impressionist art when dealing with the criminal. The culprit was then arrested for the burglary and convicted.

By: Lynda Albertson

While the Galleria d'Arte Moderna got its collection returned, by giving in and paying a thief's ransom, they encouraged further robberies.   Just three months later, on May 15, 1975, thieves struck the museum for a second time.

As if to add insult to injury, the second theft made use of the same security vulnerabilities.  Thieves entered the museum via the exact same avenue taken earlier, as if the first theft was a dress rehearsal for the second grand performance.

To break into the museum they came in over the high wall around the museum and then penetrated the building by climbing a ladder and entering through an upper floor window which had not been fitted with a burglar alarm. 

Once inside they reportedly overpowered four night watchmen.  Two were bound and gagged while making rounds and two were subsequently subdued in the Grassi Gallery where the criminals again made off with a substantial cache of paintings.

This time, even more Impressionist and Postimpressionist works of art were stolen, 38 in total. Many of the artworks stolen, including Van Gogh's watercolour Breton Women (after Emile Bernard), were the same ones taken during the previous robbery.

Perhaps because the thieves were banking on a ransom having already been paid?

One month later, on June 17, 1975, police got a break.  During an routine traffic stop, Giuseppe Pennestri was arrested by Italian authorities while driving a Mercedes with New Zealand license plates under an assumed name.  With him was a Yugoslavian also travelling with false identity papers.

Pennestri would turn out to be a truly unsavoury character, with a record that included not only masterminding the theft of the museum, possibly on both occasions, but also a rap sheet that included homicide, drug dealing, facilitating prostitution and apparent ties to organized crime. 

While the Galleria d'Arte Moderna got its collection returned, by giving in and paying a thief's ransom, they encouraged further robberies.   Just three months later, on May 15, 1975, thieves struck the museum for a second time.

As if to add insult to injury, the second theft made use of the same security vulnerabilities.  Thieves entered the museum via the exact same avenue taken earlier, as if the first theft was a dress rehearsal for the second grand performance.

To break into the museum they came in over the high wall around the museum and then penetrated the building by climbing a ladder and entering through an upper floor window which had not been fitted with a burglar alarm. 

Once inside they reportedly overpowered four night watchmen.  Two were bound and gagged while making rounds and two were subsequently subdued in the Grassi Gallery where the criminals again made off with a substantial cache of paintings.

This time, even more Impressionist and Postimpressionist works of art were stolen, 38 in total. Many of the artworks stolen, including Van Gogh's watercolour Breton Women (after Emile Bernard), were the same ones taken during the previous robbery.

Perhaps because the thieves were banking on a ransom having already been paid?

One month later, on June 17, 1975, police got a break.  During an routine traffic stop, Giuseppe Pennestri was arrested by Italian authorities while driving a Mercedes with New Zealand license plates under an assumed name.  With him was a Yugoslavian also travelling with false identity papers.

Pennestri would turn out to be a truly unsavoury character, with a record that included not only masterminding the theft of the museum, possibly on both occasions, but also a rap sheet that included homicide, drug dealing, facilitating prostitution and apparent ties to organized crime. 

Arrested in Niger and transferred to The Hague in September 2015 Ahmad al Faqi al Mahdi, a one time member of the Mali-operating Islamic fundamentalist group Ansar ed-Din (best translated as guardians of the faith) stood before the Trial Chamber VIII of the International Criminal Court (ICC) today while it delivered its judgment in the case of The Prosecutor v. Ahmad Al Faqi Al Mahdi.   During today's hearing, the Chamber unanimously found Mr Al Mahdi guilty beyond reasonable doubt as a co-perpetrator of the war crime consisting in intentionally directing attacks against religious and historic buildings in Timbuktu, Mali. 

During a 45 minute long hearing presented in its entirety below, the three-judge Chamber sentenced Mr Al Mahdi to nine years imprisonment with a deduction of time served for the days in which he has been incarcerated following his arrest in Nigeria on the ICC warrant issued on 18 September 2015.   According to ICC spokesman spokesperson Fadi ElAbdallah Al Mahdi will not serve out his sentence in the detention centre at the ICC in the Hague. He will “serve his sentence in a national establishment of a state which has agreed to receive the convicted.  Decisions on this issue will be made in due course by the ICC in dialogue with relevant states.” 

According to ICC documents Mr.  al-Mahdi was appointed to head the Hisbah (the manners brigade) in April 2012 which he oversaw until September 2012. The Hisbah was in charge of regulating the morality of the people of Timbuktu, and of suppressing and repressing anything perceived by the occupying forces to constitute a visible vice.

Between June 30, 2012 and around July 11, 2012 al-Mahdi and his co-perpetrators first attacked and destroyed:

🏺 The Sidi Mahamoud Ben Omar Mohamed Aquit Mausoleum

🏺 The Sheikh Mohamed Mahmoud Al Arawani Mausoleum

🏺The Sheikh Sidi El Mokhtar Ben Sidi Mouhammad Al Kabir Al Kounti Mausoleum

🏺 The Alpha Moya Mausoleum

🏺 The Sheikh Mouhamad El Micky Mausoleum

🏺 The Sheikh Abdoul Kassim Attouaty Mausoleum

🏺 The Sheikh Sidi Ahmed Ben Amar Arragadi Mausoleum

🏺 The Ahamed Fulane Mausoleum adjoining the Djingareyber Mosque 

🏺 The Bahaber Babadié Mausoleum adjoining the Djingareyber Mosque 

🏺 The door of the Sidi Yahia Mosque

With the exception of the Sheikh Mohamed Mahmoud Al Arawani Mausoleum, each of these buildings were all classified as UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Sites which embodied the identity of the city, known as the “Pearl of the Desert” and the “City of 333 Saints”. 

Testifying at the opening of his trial on August 22, 2016 Mr. Al Mahdi expressed remorse and admitted to the ICC that he was guilty of the war crime consisting of attacking the historic and religious monuments stating “All the charges brought against me are accurate and correct. I am really sorry, and I regret all the damage that my actions have caused.”  He further stated “I seek their forgiveness and I ask them to look at me as a son who has lost his way,” and “I would like to make them a solemn promise that this was the first and the last wrongful act I will ever commit.”

Mr. Al Faqi Al Mahdi’s guilty plea and conviction constitute a watershed moment in heritage crime prosecution as it represents the first case of its kind to be successfully brought before and ultimately prosecuted by the ICC concerning the destruction of historic monuments and buildings dedicated to religion. 

Speaking in response to today's ruling, El Boukhari Ben Essayouti, Head of the Cultural Mission of Timbuktu stated he hoped this trail has been an important lesson, not just to Ahmad al Faqi al Mahdi but to others who would destroy culture.  He was quoted as saying that he hoped this trial “has to be useful for something, showing to everyone that in the same way that we cannot kill another person with impunity, we cannot just destroy a world heritage site with impunity either.” 

Portrait of Tainui Chief, Kewene Te Haho purportedly by Gottfried Lindauer, originally purchased by Trust Waikato for $121,000 for the Trust Waikato Art and Taonga Collection, Waikato Museum te Whare Taonga o Waikato. The portrait was judged a fake in 2012.

Displaying a fake painting in an art exhibition isn't usually something advantageous for a museum but for the Waikato Museum curating a "genuine fake" juxtaposed alongside the genuine article from their own museum collection serves to highlight an important point.  Fakes and forgeries are not easily detected and sometimes authenticity is coloured not just by what the viewer wants to believe but by the amount of money spent on an artwork, its prestigious location, or simply a desire of the part of a collector to own a work of art by a renowned artist.  

Casual estimates by museum professionals estimate that upwards of 20 percent of the artworks held in major museums around the world will no longer be attributed to the same artists one hundred years from now.  While a chunk of that percentage will change due to advances in scientific evidence and art historical research, an embarrassing number of them will be relegated to storerooms as forgeries committed by tricksters.

To keep forgery and other art crimes in the public's eye New Zealand's Waikato Museum in Hamilton will be hosting An Empty Frame: Crimes of Art in New Zealand from now through January 8, 2017.    The exhibition, guest curated by art historian Penelope Jackson, features 30 New Zealand artworks that each, at some stage, have been the "victims" of an art crime; each accompanied by its own "behind the crimes" story.

Walking through the exhibition one gets a full on view of the psyche and motives of the art criminals who have tried their hand at artistic skulduggery in New Zealand. Some crimes appear to have been simply opportunistic while others were far more calculating.  

The exhibition also reminds us of the value of authenticity and how New Zealander's affection for Māori culture has been exploited by forgers who seem to have caught on that painting up "unknown" artworks in the style of Gottfried Lindauer, one of the best-known painters of Māori portraits, could fetch a pretty penny at auction. One painting, a portrait of Tainui Chief, Kewene Te Haho by a still unknown artist, remains part of the Trust Waikato Art and Taonga Collection held at Waikato Museum and is on display as part of the exhibition.

From forgery and fraud to theft and vandalism An Empty Frame offers patrons a first hand view of some of New Zealand's most intriguing art crime cases. With an emphasis on the ways in which art crimes harm *everybody* — not just by cheating rich buyers, museums and their agents, not just by ruining a few reputations, nor even by distorting whole markets, the exhibition deftly illustrates how crimes against art hurt everyone.  

At times the victims are individuals... at times the victims are galleries... at times the victims are cities and states... and at times the victims are entire countries.

Waikato Museum

1 Grantham Street

Hamilton, New Zealand

Exhibition Dates: 24 September 2016 - 8 January 2017

10 am – 5 pm, excluding Christmas Day

Entry Fee: None

This exhibition is accompanied by a book, Art Thieves, Fakers and Fraudsters: The New Zealand Story (Awa Press). On Saturday 1 October, Penelope Jackson will give a free public talk on art crime and forgery at 10:30 am.

Please visit waikatomuseum.co.nz for further information.

Hapless buyer inspired by IKEA recreating a faux Middle Eastern outdoor living space? Or knowing accomplice to the illicit trafficking of cultural property?

The cargo was shipped labeled as “pierres d'ornement pour décoration de jardin” (ornamental stonework for garden decoration) and arrived on March 10, 2016 in transit from Lebanon to Thailand via Paris Charles de Gaulle/Roissy Airport (French: Aéroport de Paris-Charles-de-Gaulle, IATA: CDG, ICAO: LFPG).  Attracting the attention of customs authorities, the crate was inspected based on data originating from the ICS (Import Control System) that came into force in the European Union at the end of 2010.

The ICS is an eSecurity Declaration Management System used for the importation of goods into the European Union customs territory. Designed in part to deal with the massive volume of cargo that passes through the EU annually, the new regulation requires that a certain number of data elements be sent to the EU customs office at the first port of entry, by a specific deadline, in this case, at least 4 hours before the long haul transiting cargo was scheduled to arrive at the first airport in the territory.  

In most cases this type of prearrival information is transmitted by the sender before the shipment has even left the country of export. Upon receipt of the Entry Summary Declaration message, what is known as the cargo's ENS, the customs office at the port of arrival can then elect to order a shipment pulled where it will undergo a security-related risk analysis.  

When the ENS arrived for the innocuously labeled garden decorations, the identifying data supplied, plus the shipping crates weight (108 kilos), and the cargo's shipper and recipient raised questions.   To be thorough, customs authorities earmarked the container for a cross-check.  

While examining its contents, search officers did not find ordinary household decorations mass produced for a garden, instead they found what appeared to be two original bas-reliefs intricately dotted with grape clusters and birds with no export license from any country of origin.  Called in for consultation, the Department of Antiquities at the Musée du Louvre believe that the carved stone reliefs are authentic and likely dating from between the 14th and the 16th century CE, possibly originating from the middle Euphrates valley, (North Western Syria). *NOTE: This assessment still needs further scientific and validating research.  

Some Import-Export information to chew on...

✈ The Charles de Gaulle, Roissy airport, north of Paris, is the first customs border of France. 

✈ Some 65 million passengers transit through CdG annually. 

✈ In terms of air cargo, just over 50 million metric tonnes of freight are shipped around the globe annually.  

✈ In 2015 a whopping 1,890,829 of those tonnes passed through CdG making it the number two European airport for freight, after Frankfurt.

✈ Art and antiquities valued above a certain threshold exported or imported from one country to another require export licenses

✈ More than 31,500 scheduled international flights depart Lebanon annually, destined for 54 airports in 41 countries.

✈ While legal instruments in place vary from country to country, cultural goods that reach or exceed specific age or monetary value threshold require an individual licence for export, whether on a permanent or temporary loan basis.

✈ Both national ownership laws and export controls are put in place as a restraint on the free circulation of artworks through the market and are promulgated in response to the sale of objects or dismemberment of ancient monuments and sites simply to satisfy market demand.

✈ Ancient artifacts, taken in violation of national ownership laws are stolen property in market nations, as well as in the country of origin.

✈ This is not the first time that smugglers have intentionally mislabeled an illicit ancient object as a contemporary outdoor accoutrement to circumvent the legal instruments. In a case involving the now imfamous Subhash Kapoor, a shipper was expecting the arrival of a shipment containing seven crates manifested as a single “Marble Garden Table Set.”  The consulate believed these crates contained stolen Indian antiquities. This merchandise was allegedly imported by Kapoor.

Kind of makes you wonder how many antiquities/garden sets there are floating around the world over our heads smuggled in or out under the radar.

Some examples of French customs seizures involving cultural objects (though by all means not an inclusive list)

🏺 In March 2006, more than 6,000 artefacts looted from archaeological sites in Niger and seized by French customs officials in 2004 and 2005 were given back to their country of origin.

🏺 In January 2007 customs seized nine suspicious-looking packages marked "hand­crafted objects" from Bamako,  the capital of Mali.  Inside they found more than 650 ancient objects, including ax heads, bracelets, flint stones and stone rings, excavated from a Neolithic settlement in Ménaka (Eastern Mali)

🏺 In 2008, French customs officials seized crates arriving from Togo stamped "craftwork" which contained artefacts. ICOM approached a specialist to appraise the objects, one of which was revealed through thermoluminescence testing to be a genuine Nok statuette from Nigeria. 

🏺 In January 2013 France returned five ancient terracotta sculptures to Nigeria smuggled out of the country in 2010.

🏺 In 2014 France returned 250 Egyptian antiquities dating back to the Roman dominion over Egypt (circa 30-641 BCE) and the Coptic Christian era were seized from the luggage of travellers arriving in Paris in March and November of 2010.

If these are the launderers, then who are the buyers?  

Buying and selling ancient art requires a prudent purchaser, one willing to research the provenience (country of origin) and provenance (history of ownership) of an object they intend to own and to evaluate the available information in the context of the current legal framework.  

When details of an object's past are omitted, by the seller, by an antiquities dealer or by an auction house, either intentionally or accidentally, and a buyer knowingly turns a blind eye, they are just as complicit in facilitating the illicit market and the destruction of cultural heritage.  In the 21st century churning trafficked antiquities through the legitimate marketplace, buying and selling intentionally mislabeled pretty things while still conveniently clinging to the negligent “don’t ask, don’t tell” approach is inexcusable. 

By Lynda Albertson