US Returns Two Looted Bronze Buddha Statues, Sold by Disgraced Antiquities Dealer Douglas Latchford, to Indonesia
The United States returned two 8th-century bronze Buddha sculptures to Indonesia at a ceremony on July 8 at the Indonesian Consulate in New York, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York. Prosecutors said the bronzes were looted from archaeological sites in Indonesia by an organized network, sold to British antiquities dealer Douglas Latchford (who died in Thailand in 2020 after being indicted in 2019 for trafficking), and then sold to an unnamed collector between 2003 and 2007. The collector relinquished 34 objects around 2021, and the U.S. Attorney’s office said Latchford misled the collector to conceal that the pieces were stolen; U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton said the office would continue working with Homeland Security Investigations to combat trafficking. The same July 8 event also included the return of two preserved Dayak human skulls from Borneo, collectively valued at about $15,000, as part of a larger cache of repatriated antiquities from Italy, Iraq, and Indonesia, with Indonesian Consul General Winanto Adi citing cooperation with the Manhattan District Attorney’s office.
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This story was covered in Repatriation Shockwaves and Museum Ethics on Trial