Bulgarian officials said Friday they had recovered over 5,600 smuggled antiquities and arrested 22 members of two international smuggling rings in a joint operation with Turkey and France. A tip-off by the Bulgarian services eighteen months ago has led to the dismantling of “two international organized crime groups with members of different nationalities engaged in…
Celebrating a repatriation decades in the making, U.S. and Italian law enforcement gathered in New York on Thursday with ancient statues, flasks and other artifacts set to be returned overseas. Bronzes of a Sardinian warrior and ox from the 8th century B.C., a Greek bronze of Heracles believed to be from the 3rd or 4th…
Sotheby’s offers the upper part of a Greek marble funerary stele on his next auction in London, on June 12, 2017 (lot 8) (see picture on the right). The funerary stele derives clearly from the confiscated Gianfranco Becchina archive according to Dr. Christos Tsirogiannis, a forensic archaeologist and Affiliated Researcher in the Scottish Centre for…
The Council of Europe Convention on Offences relating to Cultural Property was adopted on 3 May 2017 and came into force on 19 May 2017 (Council of Europe Treaty Series no. 221). The Treaty is open for signature by the member States and the non-member States which have participated in its elaboration and for accession by other non-member…
Seven ancient statues and pottery vessels are headed back to their homeland in Italy after authorities said they tracked down the stolen items in New York City. Dating back as far as the eighth century B.C., the artifacts were looted by Italian tomb raiders in the 1990s, then were smuggled out of the country and…
Bulgaria recovers over 5,000 antiquities in joint anti-smuggling op with Turkey, France. Bulgarian officials said Friday they had recovered over 5,600 smuggled antiquities and arrested 22 members of two international smuggling rings in a joint operation with Turkey and France. A tip-off by the Bulgarian services eighteen months ago has led to the dismantling of…
A recently published article by Nick Romeo at the National Geographic’s webpage describes the work of Dr. Christos Tsirogiannis who detects regularly illicit objects in museum’s collections and auction houses. The article is cited in the following. A few years ago, Christos Tsirogiannis was looking through the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s online collection when he…
Syria and Iraq: Culture at Risk. Illicit Trafficking of Cultural Goods – 31/03/2017, Stockholm (Sweden) In the footsteps of war and unrest, antiquities are being looted from ancient sites and museums. These objects are sold illegally on a growing international market. This trade is a strong threat to proper documentation of our cultural heritage and…
Illegal excavations that have been continuing for the last three months in the ancient city of Myndos in Bodrum’s Gümüşlük neighborhood have elicited the anger of locals due to the lack of any action to halt the activity. “They’re doing whatever they want in the ancient city. Treasure hunters are looting the national treasures…
The UNESCO Doha Office in partnership with Abu Dhabi Tourism and Culture Authority is organizing a workshop on “Ethics of collections and fight against illicit traffic of cultural heritage in the GCC” from the 2nd to the 4th of April in the Bab al Qasr hotel in Abu Dhabi. The illicit import, export and transfer…
EAA-Community on the Illicit Trade in Cultural Material 