via Bloomberg, 29 June 2022: A great feature in Bloomberg on the stolen antiquities from Cambodia, facilitated by the late Douglas Latchford, and the detective trail to trace the pieces from the ruins to some of the world’s most famous museums.
Deep in the Cambodian jungle, investigators are unraveling a network that trafficked antiquities on an unprecedented scale and brought them all the way to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
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Gordon was pleased with the accord, but he was just as interested in something else Julia agreed to provide: access to Latchford’s records of transactions involving dealers, collectors, and cultural institutions all over the world, among them the Met and the British Museum. Still, to get those statues back, Cambodia would need evidence that would be harder for their current owners to ignore, such as eyewitness testimony of recent looting and archaeological remnants corroborating those accounts. Tracking down and reclaiming all the works would be a huge endeavor, but Gordon, who was working pro bono for the Cambodian government, had become obsessed with getting it done. Collectively, “it’s a massive crime,” he said, “probably the largest art theft in history.”
Toek Tik was still Gordon’s best source. Together they went through Adoration and Glory and Latchford’s other books page by page, and Toek Tik drew maps of precise locations where he said he’d taken statues. He accompanied Gordon and Cambodian researchers the lawyer had hired to more than 20 temples, going over what he remembered. In return, Gordon helped Toek Tik out when he could, for example by covering medical costs. Despite those favors, Gordon didn’t think Toek Tik was revealing what he knew for material gain. “He was absolutely in love with the idea that we were bringing back these statues,” Gordon recalled. “He felt guilty.”
Source: Behind the ‘Largest Art Theft in History’: How Stolen Art Went to Top Museums
