2020-06-05 | Art & Culture, Art and Antiquities Crime, Restitution, Subhash Kapoor
National Gallery of AustraliaSubhash KapoorRestitutions On 27 November 2017 the Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison formally announced that as a result of criminal law proceedings underway in India and the United States against New York art dealer Subhash Kapoor,...
2020-06-05 | Arrests, Art & Culture, Court-related, theft
UK Heritage LawsArrestsSentencing This Friday ARCA reviews one of the few successful cases of prosecution using the UK’s Dealing in Cultural Objects (Offences) Act of 2003. Christopher Cooper was an unemployed, amateur antique dealer in the United Kingdom, who...
2020-05-23 | Illicit trafficking, Looting and Plunder, Restitution
19 MAY 2020 Illicit trafficking Seizure Antiquities Authorities in the United States have filed a civil forfeiture complaint for a 1600 BCE cuneiform tablet featuring a dream sequence from the Epic of Gilgamesh. Acting as the Plaintiff in the case, the US authorities...
2020-05-09 | Arrests, Illicit trafficking
Illicit trafficking Seizure Arrests Interpol has issued a preliminary announcement on Operations Athena II and Pandora IV. A total of 300 coordinated investigations took place, spanning 103 countries. All of which focused on the dismantlement of international...
2020-04-30 | Illicit trafficking, Looting and Plunder, Restitution
Illicit trafficking Seizure Arrests The city of Şanlıurfa, modern-day Urfa, is situated in the Taurus Mountains of southern Anatolia, where the east-west highway from Zeugma on the Euphrates to where the Tigris meets with the north-south route from Somaysāṭ. Known...
2020-04-23 | Art & Culture, Museum Theft
Van Gogh The NetherlandsMuseum Theft The Dutch police have released a portion of the video surveillance footage of a single suspect directly involved in the nighttime theft of Vincent Van Gogh’s Parish garden in Nuenen from the Singer Laren Museum. On loan from...
2020-04-18 | Art and Antiquities Crime, Illicit trafficking, Looting and Plunder
CINOA Art and Crime Statistics Market Opacity Erika Bochereau, the Secretary General of the Confédération Internationale des Négociants en Œuvres d’Art (CINOA), a trade organization for art and antiques dealers, has written a response to a recent report by ILLICID,...
2020-04-18 | Arrests, Art & Culture, Education, Museum of the Bible, Papyri
Dead Sea Scrolls Theft Arrest On 16 April Lois Helsop at The Oxford Blue broke the news of that Thames Valley police had arrested American papyrologist Dr. Dirk Obbink, an associate professor in papyrology and Greek literature at Oxford University, on 2 March 2020....
2020-04-16 | Arrests, Art & Culture, Art and Antiquities Crime, Dirk Obbink, Papyri, theft
TheftEES Arrests It has now been made public, by the Oxford Blue that American papyrologist Dr. Dirk Obbink, an associate professor in papyrology and Greek literature at Oxford University, was taken into custody on 2 March 2020 by the Thames Valley police on suspicion...
2020-04-11 | Art & Culture, Christie's, Court-related
Christie’s Deferred prosecution NY/DA’s Office In a Deferred Prosecution Agreement, the auction powerhouse Christie’s has agreed to pay up to $16.7 million in sales tax, penalties and interest over a two-year period to the state of New York. The...