Chasing Aphrodite
Researching the illicit antiquities trade for two decades as an investigative reporter, author, blogger, tweeter, investigator, founder @MuseumofLoot and now...skeeter?
chasingaphrodite.com
museumofloot.org
achillesresearch.org
- Reposted by Chasing AphroditeTimes: The British Museum is looking for a "treasure hunter" to track down the hundreds of gems, cameos and gold fragments allegedly stolen from storerooms by former curator Peter Higgs. The BM has recovered just 654 of the estimated 1,500 items stolen. www.thetimes.com/culture/art/...
- Reposted by Chasing AphroditeThe discourse around the Bayeux tapestry's "return" echoes repatriation discourses, in a way that reminds me of how pro-Brexit ideologues co-opted the language of (anti-British) independence movements.
- “To contribute to a field of knowledge, you need to accurately survey the landscape, sniff out what’s fishy and demonstrate why it’s rotten. Large language models have trouble on all three counts.” I Asked ChatGPT to Solve an 800-Year-Old Italian Mystery. www.nytimes.com/2025/12/22/o...
- White House officials told the Smithsonian that federal funds are available only “for use in a manner consistent” with President Donald Trump’s executive order from March, which tasked aides with rooting out “ideological indoctrination or divisive narratives” www.cnn.com/2025/12/21/p...
- Season two of Down Cemetery Road adapts Mick Herron's The Last Voice You Hear, delving into black market antiquities and murder. bleedingcool.com/tv/down-ceme...
- (I’m watching Season one and disappointed by plot and character development. Wanted to like it but curse at the screen mostly)
- Reposted by Chasing AphroditeBIG NEWS: Asian Art Museum of San Francisco returns to Cambodia 13 antiquities linked to the late indicted antiquities trafficker Douglas Latchford by an investigation of Homeland Security Investigations and Cambodian authorities. about.asianart.org/press/asian-...
- BBC: More than 600 artefacts of significant cultural value have been stolen from Bristol Museum's archive in a high-value raid, police said. Thieves took military memorabilia, jewellery, natural history pieces and carved ivory, bronze and silver figurines on Sept 25. www.bbc.com/news/article...
- Pope Leo XIV has encouraged the Pontifical Institute for Christian Archaeology to build bridges and overcome prejudices by taking part in cultural diplomacy. The Pope also published an Apostolic Letter "On the Importance of Archaeology". www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news...
- Poland arrested archaeologist Alexander Butyagin of Russia’s Hermitage Museum, who oversees research on a Greek site on the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia illegally annexed from Ukraine in 2014. Kyiv considers any antiquities taken from the site to be stolen. www.nytimes.com/2025/12/11/w...
- Reposted by Chasing AphroditeChristie’s withdraws rare ‘first calculator’ from auction after French court halts export
- Sound familiar? www.rollingstone.com/culture/cult...
- Reposted by Chasing Aphrodite"The bishops will now hand over these items to national Indigenous organizations, who will be responsible for returning them to their communities of origin." www.romereports.com/en/2025/11/1...
- Sotheby’s has coped with slower sales by making dramatic moves, including cutting a deal with an Abu Dhabi wealth fund for a nearly $1 billion infusion and moving its New York flagship to the Breuer on a chic Madison Avenue block near the Metropolitan Museum of Art. www.wsj.com/arts-culture...
- An investigation by The Ferret found that Israeli Defence Force propaganda videos reused 3D models from Scotland’s Irvine Maritime Museum, turning a boat-building workshop into scenes of Hamas tunnels and Iranian bunkers. www.theferret.scot/idf-scottish...
- Reposted by Chasing AphroditeWe're on! Register via QR. code below
- Reposted by Chasing AphroditeWhat impact did this handful of specialized HSI agents have in recent years? Working with Manhattan DA's ATU, they helped convict 18 antiquities traffickers, recovered approximately 6,100 antiquities valued at $480 million, and returned approximately 5,770 of them to 32 countries, with more daily.
- Reposted by Chasing AphroditeDenver Post confirms what we’ve been hearing: nearly all federal HSI agents with expertise on cultural property crimes have been reassigned to immigration duties in recent months. Major loss of law enforcement capabilities in the world’s largest art market. www.denverpost.com/2025/11/06/u...
- Reposted by Chasing AphroditeSoft power: At the end of his talks with Vietnamese Defense Minister, Hegseth handed over a leather box, a belt and a small knife — wartime artifacts once taken by U.S. soldiers. Such returns have become part of broader reconciliation efforts between the two countries infonews.ca/news/7409764...
- Billions in treasure lie on the seafloor. Finders keepers? As treasure hunters pursue gold and silver, they both aid and compete with archaeologists. www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/202...
- Reposted by Chasing AphroditeA head, a body, and two antiquities dealers... Have you ever come across this Gudea statue? It's in the Louvre Abu Dhabi now, but until last year it had been in the Louvre Paris since 1953. HOW did get there though? Let me tell you the story 🕵️♀️🔎👇 www.academia.edu/144706747/Ib...
- A thief or crew of thieves recently carried out one of the largest art heists in California history, breaking into a storage facility for the Oakland Museum of California under the cover of darkness and making off with more than 1,000 precious artifacts. www.latimes.com/california/s...
- LACMA workers unionize “Many employees are struggling with wages that have not kept up with the rising cost of living in the sixth-most expensive city in the world,” workers wrote in a letter addressed to the museum’s executive team and the board of trustees.” www.latimes.com/entertainmen...
- Reposted by Chasing Aphrodite🌟The Wildlife Crime Research Hub at the soon-to-be Adelaide University is hiring! 🌟 If this sounds like you or someone you know, please apply or share within your networks! Adelaide is a lovely city and you'll get to see plenty of 🦘🐨🦜! careers.adelaide.edu.au/cw/en/job/51...
- Reposted by Chasing AphroditeNew Case: Persephone of Cyrene, contributed by Julia Granato This ornate marble sculpture of Persephone, Queen of the Underworld, was looted from the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Cyrene (Cyrenaica) in Shahhat, Libya during the 2011 uprising against Muammar Gaddafi.
- NYT: Museum’s Treasures to Be Sold as Founder Faces $50 Million Legal Bill Masterpieces of Asian art held by the Okada Museum of Art in Japan are being auctioned by Sotheby’s in Hong Kong to settle a $50 million legal bill by the museum’s “Pachinko King” founder. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/24/a...
- Louvre museum security was outdated and inadequate at time of heist Nearly two-thirds of rooms are without cameras in some galleries The Louvre has ample funds, which could have been used for urgently needed improvements of security equipment, govt report found apple.news/ANJ19C0gNTpe...
- Reposted by Chasing AphroditeImportant and detailed analysis on the extent of looting and cultural heritage destruction in the Sudanese Civil War and the heroic work done to document the destruction and protect Sudan's heritage. Also reveals that this year a list has finally been drafted of known looted antiquities from Sudan.
- Reposted by Chasing AphroditeBreaking: Thieves broke into the Louvre’s Galerie d’Apollon, which houses the French crown jewels. They targeted two display cases and fled on motor scooters within seven minutes, taking jewelry that had “patrimonial” and “historical” value that made it “priceless.” www.nytimes.com/2025/10/19/w...
- A C.I.A. Secret Kept for 35 Years Is Found in the Smithsonian’s Vault…while its author is trying to sell it at auction “the auction room is a strange place.” www.nytimes.com/2025/10/16/s...
- The Pushkin job: unmasking the thieves behind an international rare books heist As many as 170 rare and valuable editions of Russian classics were stolen from libraries across Europe. Were the thieves merely low-level opportunists, or were bigger forces at work? www.theguardian.com/books/2025/o...
- Trade based money laundering in the antiquities trade
- Reposted by Chasing AphroditeA Naga-Garuda Balustrade Terminal in the Battambang Museum. Carved in late 12th century it was removed from Banteay Chhmar temple to avoid it being stolen. #Cambodia
- Chasing Aphrodite was stolen by the AI monkeys.
- Inside the Battle for The Smithsonian Donald Trump’s unprecedented measures to take control of The Smithsonian Institution have rattled staffers, enraged artists, and even put the future of its vast collection in doubt. www.vanityfair.com/news/story/i...
- “Optical due diligence” remains the coin of the realm in the art market, with Art Loss Register profiting off the illusion. Looted objects are not registered as stolen, so they’re not in stolen art databases like ALR! NYT should do better than to promote this myth www.nytimes.com/2025/10/02/a...
- Quiet part out loud: “It’s evidence at the time of purchase of the best level of due diligence,” ALR’s Olivia Whitting said. “If, later on, a claim is made on the piece, the collector can show that they did their due diligence, and the documentation provided passed our checks.” Nope!
- I made all these points back in 2013 and nothing has changed. chasingaphrodite.com/2013/08/01/o...
- Six years after admitting its 14 fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls were forgeries, the Museum of the Bible is borrowing the real deal from Israel www.morningstar.com/news/pr-news...
- Here’s the research on those forgeries: d2f7x7uhr2xem7.cloudfront.net/sixteen_by_n...
- Nine days after launching a virtual museum that documents crimes by the Assad regime against prisoners, activist and journalist Amer Matar was arrested and confined overnight by Syrian authorities. www.icij.org/news/2025/09...
- So far, about 4,000 antiquities have been counted missing in Sudan. 700 pieces disappeared from museums in the cities of Nyala and El GeneinaI, where the museum’s curator was killed when the building was shelled www.reuters.com/world/africa...
- How millennia of history vanished in Sudan's war Last spring, a group of foreigners were arrested in Sudan with antiquities in their possession. Another group in Egypt offered to return looted antiquities in exchange for money. www.al-monitor.com/originals/20...
- A Rush to Save Ancient Artifacts in Gaza Highlights All That Has Been Lost A bombing delay enabled rescue of some objects, but archaeologists fear the wider loss of antiquities from the many cultures living there over thousands of years. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/21/w...
- Why New York can be a risky place for dealers and museums to hold [stolen] art Could the Manhattan district attorney's seizures be putting people off sending [stolen] artworks to the city? www.theartnewspaper.com/2025/09/04/w...
- On If Objects Could Talk, the newest series from Getty Podcasts, artifacts from Getty's antiquities collection leave the museum vault and come alive to share their side of the story. Coming September 8, 2025. podcastingtoday.co.uk/getty-launch...
- Reposted by Chasing AphroditeMissing from the New York Times obit of the diamond magnate Maurice Tempelsman, who died Saturday, is his role as a conduit for some of the most important examples of looted Classical art to have survived antiquity. A thread... www.nytimes.com/2025/08/25/b...
- Reposted by Chasing AphroditeAshraf Eldarir, an Egyptian doctor, became involved in the “more financially lucrative” trade of smuggling antiquities into the US Eldarir pleaded guilty to four charges of smuggling and is due to be sentenced at a court in New York today. www.thenationalnews.com/news/mena/20...
- New Yorker: HOW A BILLIONAIRE OWNER BROUGHT TURMOIL AND TROUBLE TO SOTHEBY’S Patrick Drahi made a fortune through debt-fuelled telecommunications companies. Now he’s bringing his methods to the art market. apple.news/AXoxC9-sdSCy...
- The last private owner of Sotheby’s was Alfred Taubman, a charismatic Midwestern mall developer, who bought the auction house in the early eighties and was later convicted of colluding with Christie’s to fix pricing and spent ten months in prison
- Reposted by Chasing AphroditeNew Case: Pandava. This sandstone sculpture of Pandava, depicting a warrior from Hindu mythology, was stolen from the Prasat Chan temple within Cambodia's Koh Ker complex, likely in the 1970s under the Khmer Rouge.
- Reposted by Chasing AphroditeThe identity documents of indigent people were purchased or stolen as part of an elaborate scheme to fraudulently circumvent a 50-year-old global ban on the rhino horn trade. www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2025...
- Reposted by Chasing AphroditeNew Case: Portrait head of Caracalla The Manhattan DA seized this bronze portrait of the Roman emperor Caracalla from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in May 2023 as part of a sweeping investigation of the looting of the ancient site of Bubon, Türkiye.
- Reposted by Chasing AphroditeJames Baldwin’s message was simple: we’re afraid of love, because we’re afraid of exposing our true selves. To manage that fear, we “other” the groups we don’t belong to in order to avoid a reckoning with ourselves.
- Reposted by Chasing AphroditeThe FBI has tracked down and returned another manuscript signed by Hernan Cortez, one of 15 pages stolen from Mexico's National Archives before 1993. No criminal charges filed because it "changed hands several times over" in the decades since its disappearance www.fbi.gov/news/stories...
- WSJ: The White House plans to conduct a far-reaching review of Smithsonian museum exhibitions, materials and operations ahead of America’s 250th anniversary to ensure the museums align with President Trump’s interpretation of American history. www.wsj.com/politics/pol...
- Details requested by the White House extend to organization charts, responses to visitor surveys, artists featured in galleries who have received a Smithsonian grant, a list of outside partners, and internal communications related to exhibit and artwork selection and approval.
- “Only historians and trained museum professionals are qualified to conduct such a review...To suggest otherwise is an affront to the professional integrity of curators, historians, educators and everyone involved in the creation of solid, evidence-based content.” www.nytimes.com/2025/08/13/a...
- Reposted by Chasing AphroditeNew Case: The Serpent King When the National Gallery of Australia acquired this statue of Nagaraja, or Serpent King, in 2006, NYC dealer Subhash Kapoor provided an ownership document saying it had been in a Japanese collection since 1969.
- RIP Maurizio Fiorilli, the Italian state prosecutor whose years-long investigation of American museums and the illicit antiquities trade changed the art world — and paved the way for other nations to reclaim their stolen culture, too.
- Italy has lost one of its fiercest cultural guardians, and ARCA has lost a brilliant friend, mentor, and ally. art-crime.blogspot.com/2025/08/ital...
- Reposted by Chasing AphroditeManhattan DA has announced the recent return of looted antiquities to several countries: - 31 antiquities to the people of Italy; - two 6th century C.E. Visigoth pendants to Spain; - and a 17th century C.E. Jesuit manuscript to Hungary. manhattanda.org/d-a-bragg-an...
- Reposted by Chasing AphroditeFor ARTnews, I looked into the four artworks by Pablo Picasso, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Diane Arbus now being auctioned online by the US government with connections to the 1MDB scandal. Three were gifted to Leonardo DiCaprio by Jho Low and one was forfeited by a producer of THE WOLF OF WALL STREET.
- The text tells how the Sumerian storm god Ishkur was trapped in the netherworld, causing chaos on earth due to the lack of rain. Ishkur’s father Enlil summons a divine assembly and asks them to retrieve Ishkur. No gods volunteer, but, surprisingly, a lone fox does. archaeology.org/news/2025/07...
- Reposted by Chasing AphroditeMeanwhile over on the other site:
- This case illustrates how organized crime groups use the US art market for trade-based money laundering — precisely the issue targeted in the new bipartisan legislation championed by several senators and @combatlooting.bsky.social
- More on the Art Market Integrity Act > bsky.app/profile/chas...
- The French culture minister Rachida Dati is to face trial in Paris on charges of alleged corruption and “influence peddling” Dati is accused of having secretly worked as a lobbyist for the carmaker Renault-Nissan while she was in the European Parliament. www.theartnewspaper.com/2025/07/23/f...
- Reposted by Chasing AphroditePicasso's "Nature Morte au Crane de Taureau, Basquiat's Redman One & other high value artworks purchased with criminal proceeds connected to fugitive financier Low Taek Jho and the 1MDB scandal are up for auction via U.S. Marshals Service asset recovery division. www.txauction.com/auctions/308...
- Reposted by Chasing AphroditeEntire annual budget of the National Endowment for the Arts: $210 million
- NYT reports that a mysterious, *$984 million* transfer from a Pentagon"black box" account might be paying for the renovation of Trump's "free" Qatari jet. www.nytimes.com/2025/07/27/u...
- Iran’s leaders reach back to pre-Islamic times to stoke nationalism www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/0...
