Douglas Latchford made millions selling suspected stolen antiquities from holy sites across SE Asia to wealthy collectors and prestigious museums, including Denver Art Museum. Now the U.S. government says his money is tainted — and they want it back.
made millions selling antiquities suspected to be stolen from holy sites across Southeast Asia to wealthy American collectors and prestigious museums, including the Denver Art Museum.Federal prosecutors, in a landmark civil action on Thursday, announced Latchford’s daughter agreed to return $12 million in proceeds her father garnered from selling plundered artifacts.
The deal, spearheaded by the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York and Homeland Security Investigations, represents the largest-ever forfeiture of money from the sale of stolen antiquities, the agencies said in aLooted: Stolen relics, laundered art and a Colorado scholar’s role in the illicit antiquities trade
“For years, Douglas Latchford made millions from selling looted antiquities in the U.S. art market, stashing his ill-gotten gains offshore,” U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said in a statement. “This historic forfeiture action and settlement shows that we will be relentless in following the money wherever it leads to fight the illicit trade in cultural patrimony.”
Latchford’s daughter, Julia Copleston, will also relinquish a seventh-century bronze Vietnamese statue depicting the four-armed goddess Durga. Prosecutors allege the statue was stolen from the Southeast Asian nation in 2008 or 2009; Latchford then purchased it using “tainted funds,” authorities said.
The Bangkok-based businessman’s alleged exploits were suspected for years, but only began to unravel during a series of civil and criminal cases brought by American prosecutors in the early 2010s. Those investigations culminated in a much-publicizedby a federal grand jury in 2019, accusing Latchford of perpetrating a decades-long smuggling scheme to sell looted works.
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