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The property of Douglas A.J. Latchford, an artwork and antiquities vendor who was accused of promoting historic artifacts stolen from Cambodia, has agreed handy over $12 million and a seventeenth Vietnamese bronze statue to settle a civil lawsuit introduced by the U.S. Authorities, in keeping with the New York Instances.
In 2019, federal prosecutors from the Southern District of New York alleged that Latchford had “constructed a profession out of the smuggling and illicit sale of priceless Cambodian antiquities, usually straight from archaeological websites” and solid paperwork so as to promote the artifacts.
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Latchford’s daughter, whom the Instances stories is recognized in courtroom paperwork as Julia Copleston, inherited an “undetermined sum of money from her father” and greater than 125 artifacts suspected to have been looted from Cambodia after his demise in 2020. She has since agreed to return the objects to Cambodia, as properly forfeit “tainted proceeds” from the sale of looted works.
“The late Douglas Latchford was a prolific vendor of stolen antiquities,” U.S. Homeland Safety particular agent Ivan J. Arvelo mentioned in an announcement. “His complicity in quite a few illicit transactions over a number of a long time garnered him thousands and thousands of {dollars} in funds from patrons and sellers in the USA, of which as a part of this settlement, $12 million shall be rightfully forfeited by his property.”
The Cambodian authorities has been central to the restitution debate lately and has gone to nice lengths to require works from museums and establishments which were looted from non secular and archaeological websites. Amongst these establishments is the Metropolitan Museum of Artwork in New York, the place Cambodian officers imagine dozens of looted works are on show or in storage, lots of which have been offered or gifted to the museum by Latchford.
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