June 2, 2026 • 38 mins
It's no secret that during acts of war, artifacts get stolen as an old act of dominance. But you may not realize that it's still happening today. In 2024, the Metropolitan Museum of Art physically returned 14 statues to Cambodia when they discovered that they had been looted during decades of civil war. And in 2023, the CEO of Hobby Lobby was indicted when he was found to be at the center of stolen Iraqi pieces that were for his Bible museum. Kal sits down with J.P. Labbat, a retired special agent who worked in the US government's Cultural Property, Art, and Antiquities unit. He's spent his career investigating stolen artifacts and returning them home.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Have you ever had anything stolen like your wallet, or
your phone or your heart? Now, what would you do
if that stolen phone ended up in a museum like
five thousand miles away. During acts of war, things get
stolen a lot, and looting historical and cultural pieces during
(00:22):
these times of war is an old act of dominance.
It happened when the Romans invaded the Greeks, they stole
coins and statues and sacred objects. And it happened when
the Nazis invaded Europe and looted over six hundred and
fifty thousand art pieces that originally belonged to Jewish owners.
It's an act that's still happening today. In twenty twenty four,
(00:43):
the Metropolitan Museum of Art, one of my favorites right
here in New York City, physically returned fourteen statues to
Cambodia when they discovered that they had been looted during
decades of civil war. And in twenty twenty three, the
CEO of Hobby Lobby was indicted when he was found
to be at the center of stolen Iraqi pieces that
(01:04):
were for his Bible museum.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
We had a case of an Egyptian doctor. He came
into JFK with this luggage. There was not a single
piece of clothing in his banks. They were failed with
artifacts so fresh out of the ground that when we
were taking the pieces out, sand was drooping out of
the artifact. It covered the table and fell onto the floor,
(01:29):
all the sand from I mean, these were freshly excavated artifacts.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
JP Labot is a retired special agent who worked in
the US Government's Cultural Property, Art and Antiquities Unit. He
spent his career investigating stolen artifacts and returning them home.
He was part of the team that indicted the CEO
of Hobby Lobby and helped return the fourteen statues to Cambodia.
And today we're going to talk about the underbelly of
(01:54):
the antiquities trafficking industry, the Hobby Lobby case, and why
you should always always all customs agents that you're bringing
back twenty three bottles of wine from South Africa like
I did.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
Here we go, Agon, Agon Agon.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
Hey, I'm cal Pen and this is here We Go Again,
a show that takes today's trends and headlines and asks
why does history keep repeating itself? Here Lee go, Yeah,
(02:37):
thanks for being here.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
Thanks for having me. Yes, my name is John Paul Levat.
I'm a retired special agent from Homeland Security Investigations in
New York and I worked ten years in the Cultural Property,
Art and Antiquities Unit, investigating the smuggling of ancient artifacts.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
Jiffie, thanks for doing this, and you have one of
the most interesting jobs I think I've ever heard of.
For people listening, can you do your best to explain
what the job was, Slash is, including what you're doing now.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
Yeah, it's funny. It's so interesting that it drew me
into it within Homeland Security. So I had spent many
years working as an agent with Homeland Security Investigations in
New York, and after nine to eleven, the government merged
the immigration and customs components into one organization that created
(03:30):
Homeland Security. Underneath Homeland Security was ICE and ICE encompasses
the detention and deportation side of it. And it also
underneath the umbrella of ICE is the Homeland Security investigation side,
and those investigators, including myself, Wow, we looked at a
full range of investigations to explore, like money laundering, narcotics,
(03:56):
weapons trafficking, the exportation of munition to suspect countries and
so after being there for twenty years. I had done
a fair amount of narcotics cases, money laundering, what have you.
And I had heard, you know, twenty years in that
there was an agent in our office who was working
(04:17):
on the recovery of cultural artifacts. And I was like,
where have I been? Like why can't I get into that?
What am I do with these drug cases when I
give you recovering artifacts? So I did some inquiries in
the office and I actually sought the agent out and
found him. I'm like, hey, aren't you Brent Easter. Aren't
(04:37):
you the guy that does the cultural property cases? And
he's like, yeah, it's me. And he's like, I'm buried.
I could really use some help. And we hit the
ground running and he taught me all the ins and outs,
who the players were, who the collectors were, who the
bad guys were. And took menders wing probably in twenty thirteen,
and you know, by twenty fifteen were probably at our
(04:57):
most prolific.
Speaker 1 (04:59):
And is that that wing, the Cultural Property Art in
Antiquities Unit, is that what it was called.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
They created a dedicated squad called the Art and Antiquities Group. Okay,
and at various points we've had as few as four
and as many as eight agents working full time on
antiquities investigations, which is which is pretty impressive.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
And did you, like you'd mentioned you mentioned when you
heard that this was a job, you were like, why
am I doing drug cases? Were there cultural reference points
or things like as a kid that made you interested
in this or when you heard about it, was it
just a random like, Oh, I didn't know this was
a thing, Like was it like the Monument's Men or
any of those kinds of like movies or TV shows
that that made you think.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
You know, when you're in elementary school and you're with
the teacher and they tell you you know, at points
in life you're going to have a calling, and that
calling will sort of dictate you know, what you want
to do in life. So you could say I've had
I had a second calling. I had an original calling
in school. I wanted to be a federal agent from
as young as I can remember, and having achieved that
(06:04):
and having a successful career, I get a second calling
when I learn about the fact that there's these cultural
artifacts that are being trafficked and we're able to investigate
them and recover them and return them to where they
were stolen from it. Just again, it's like when you're
a kid and you're like, that's what I want to do,
Like I want that, I need that. I was captivated
(06:25):
by the idea, and so I had to spend a
lot of time on my own time just learning and
studying because you know, there's so many civilizations and styles
of art that it can be overwhelming.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
What are the kinds of laws that are applied? And
I guess what the question behind this question is, Like,
so I feel like because of shows like Law and
Order or you know, I mean there's ten shows about
things like this, people know, okay, like child pornographers should
be in prison, drug traffickers hold you know, they know
(07:00):
the problem with violence and international trafficking and all of this.
How would you for somebody who doesn't know, how would
you describe why your job is important and what are
the laws and the players at stake?
Speaker 2 (07:13):
I could tell you why the cultural property cases are different,
and that is because there exists a legal trade in artifacts.
So if you come across narcotics, they're inherently illegal. Right
as soon as soon as you come across a pounded
dope or some illegal narcotics, they're illegal. On their face.
(07:36):
Child pornography is illegal on its face, right, I could
run down the list of crimes coming across someone with
an artifact is not inherently illegal. There's a legal trade
in ancient artifacts, a flourishing trade. It's existed for a
long time. So just because you encounter an artifact at
the port of entry, or someone has a collection of artifacts,
(07:58):
doesn't mean they've done anything wrong. And that's what makes
it unique, and that's what makes it different. You then
have to investigate the provenance and the problenance is the
history of the artifact, who owned it, and trace that
ownership backwards through time so that you can be satisfied
it was in the marketplace at a time when cultural
(08:21):
property laws prohibiting its entry into trade into commerce existed.
So I'll give you a perfect example. The cultural patrimony
law for Egypt is nineteen eighty three. So if some
of these artifacts were already out of Egypt before nineteen
eighty three, we don't have a case. There's a legal
(08:43):
trade in there. But if it came out after eighty three,
there's a problem. So when we see someone with an
Egyptian artifact, we start tracing the history back to satisfy
ourselves that it left the country before eighty three, and
if it didn't, now we start sending sipena is out
getting more records, doing an investigation. And so every country
(09:03):
has a different cultural patrimoney law on a different date,
every country in the world. So you can imagine, you know,
for an agent working these cases, you have to be
versed in the cultural patrimoney law of every country on
the planet. It's a lot. It's a lot that.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
Sounds so complicated. How how do you how do you check? Like,
if there's an artifact that's two thousand years old, how
do you check whether it was removed in nineteen eighty
three or nineteen eighty four?
Speaker 2 (09:29):
You check the history, right, So let's say a particular
museum had it and they bought it in two thousand.
I'm using a rough okay, okay. You get the records
from who they bought it from, and you send a
subpoena to them, well, who'd you buy it from? Where's
the invoice? And they tell them us they bought it
in nineteen ninety three and there are no records before that, right,
(09:52):
Or sometimes they tell you, oh, I bought it any
in nanshypt on the street in nineteen eighty nine, ding
Ding Ding Ding Re and fleag We're like, okay, that
means you weren't allowed to take it out, So you'd
be surprised what we recover from. And we have a
lot of sources, not just a pen of power, but
we do email search warrants, we have informants. Informants are
(10:13):
a huge source of information because these are guys on
the ground who've been double crossed or maybe got cheated
out of a deal, and they're going to rat on
their co conspirators and they communicate with law enforcement all
the time. So informants are a huge, hugeail.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
I'm guessing that in the countries of origin, local dealers
may also be a challenge. Like I'm just thinking about
the amount of travel I've done where the person selling
you something and this isn't necessarily in the antiquities category,
but in the category of like, oh, I know, I'm
not allowed to bring this particular thing back to the US,
(10:49):
and like the merchant or the dealers like no, no,
you I have done so many of these you definitely
can just buy it and you just keep it in
your luggage and like, yeah, no, I'm not trying to
lose my global entry over this, but I would imagine
that at your level with what you're dealing with, are
there trustworthy dealers in antiquities and are there is it
like you said, is it like the guy on the street,
(11:10):
or are even the brick and mortar folks in some
of these countries are their challenges there too.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
So I would say there's three types of dealers. There's
they're reputable, they check the laws, they check the provenance.
They're only going to sell items that they've fully investigated
and are convinced are legal. You're going to have your
street guys, like the ones that you encounter who try
to put stuff in your luggage. You're looking to make
a buck. But the biggest challenge is you have a
(11:40):
reputable dealer, but they like to dabble. Every so long,
they'll get a rare piece that is just too good
to pass up. It's going to fetch a lot of money.
The paperwork for it is lousy, but you know what,
take a chance. And those are the ones that are
most problematic for us because on the face of it,
(12:01):
you see the dealer and you're like, Okay, these guys
have been good over time, but every so often they dabble,
and a lot of reputable dealers have fallen prey to
that lure of the one in a million piece that
they're going to get rich over. And I just want
your listeners to know that the person bringing the piece
(12:22):
in is responsible for what's in his bag. The person
who orders something shipped into the US is responsible for
what's put on a customs label. Okay, So I've had
a lot of time to say, well, the shipper told
me x y and Z. For a US law, the
importer of record is responsible for the accuracy of all
(12:45):
the documentation. So if someone puts a different country of origin,
they're selling you something from Iraq, but they put Turkey, okay,
and that comes in. The importer is responsible for those inaccuracies.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
Is the importer the purchaser? Yes, Since you're on this track,
I think this is so interesting for people to know.
What are the penalties.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
Well, certainly seizure right, seizure of your of your material.
And that's penalty enough because let's face it, these things
cost a lot of money. Yeah, using the customs broker
is key because the penalties are seizure of your material,
and I've seen material come in as cheap as seven
hundred dollars, and I've seen material come in over a million. Okay,
(13:25):
well you would have spent that money. The government will
seize it and you'll be out simply because you didn't
spend what eight hundred dollars one thousand dollars for customs broker.
I mean, especially if you're importing something of high value,
it's a no brain like why would you? Why would
you roll the dice and on? It's sort of like
an insurance on your on your shipment right now, if
we can prove that you knew that the lies were
(13:49):
on there right now, you can get charged with smuggling.
Oh right, okay, So and we've had that. We've had
an email exchange where the seller will say, hey, this
is from Yemen, but I'm going to change the country
of origin just so that it doesn't get flagged by
US customs, and the buyer will say what a good
idea in the email like okay, yeah, so that's an
(14:13):
easy smuggling case for us.
Speaker 1 (14:15):
Is this a good time to just also give a
shout out to like always declare what you're coming in with. Yes,
I'm shocked when I travel a lot. I'm always shocked
when friends who who either don't travel or travel as
much as I do just bring shit in that they're
not declaring. I'm like, dude, Like, I remember, I did
a show in South Africa a couple of years ago.
(14:36):
I'd never been to South Africa. Excellent wine in South Africa,
so much good wine, and it was relatively so cheap
compared to you know, New York City prices that I brought.
I brought twenty three bottles of wine back with me,
right and before doing this, you know, when on the
DHS website, I'm like, Okay, what is the duty that
I have to pay? And how do I declare this?
(14:57):
Because when you especially if you've got global entry, like
you kind to just walk through. So like, I need
to make sure I stop at the right place and
tell the right person. So I go through and I
go in the right place, and I talk to the
guy and he's like, why do you have twenty three
bottles of wine? I was like, have you ever been
to South Africa? Like there's amazing wine and I've just
never been there. So I brought back twenty three. But
I'm telling you because I want to I want to
do the right thing. I want to pay whatever I
(15:17):
owe you, And he just looks at me and he sighs,
and he's like, yeah, I'm not trying to do that
kind of paperwork for twenty three dollars. Just go ahead.
So I'm like, huh. And then friends who work in,
you know, in that line of work, were like, yeah,
a lot of times it's just about whether you're disclosing
it because if it's not the kind of unlike what
you do JP where it has significant impact on a lot.
(15:38):
But the point is even bringing a couple of bottles
of wine, like, declare that shit, because the penalty for
not doing it is huge.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
And like you say, sometimes there's just even the attempt
to declare is enough because for for a customs officer,
they're like, okay, they're complying with the law. The clearly
not trying to hide something. Here, we had a case
of an Egyptian doctor and he came into JFK with
this luggage. He had maybe two or three bags. There
(16:06):
was not a single piece of clothing in his bags.
They were failed with artifacts so fresh out of the
ground that when when we were taking the pieces out,
sand was drooping out of the artifact. It covered the
table and fell onto the floor all the sand from
I mean these were freshly excavated artifacts. Yeah, what did
(16:28):
he say? Oh? He ended up getting a guilty conviction
in the Eastern Dish of New York this last year.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
Was your office's job also to find the looters themselves?
Or does it stop at the mule?
Speaker 2 (16:48):
You know, the looters are always in the foreign country. Yeah,
so it's going to be really hard to prosecute the
looters because they're abroad. And then additionally, the looters are
so far moved. You know, there are a lot of
hands in this. I can give you a perfect example.
So I had a very famous case, the Gilgamesh tablet.
(17:10):
It's a canaiform tablet. Can air form is some of
the oldest form of writing, and it's basically done with
something that you can make impressions on clay and the
writings on it. Your canear form is the oldest form
of writing. The writings on it told a story of
Gilgamesh from the Bible. Extremely rare and extremely valuable. Well,
(17:33):
he had a dealer in London who had a bunch
of Iraqi canar form tablets, including this one, sold them
for ten thousand to collector who wasn't quite sure what
they had, ships everything to California. Once in California, he
sells the gild gimatablished by itself, for ten thousand. So
he's already made his money back from the trip, and
(17:55):
he still has a whole box of artifacts that he
can still sell, so he's made a profit already. The
book dealer realizes that this tablet is rare and gets
it read by an expert and realizes, holy geez, this
is something super valuable. Sells it for fifty thousand. The
person who buys it for fifty thousand said, this is
a score. I can get a lot more money for this,
(18:16):
sells it to someone in London. Oh come on, yeah,
I don't know the purchase price for that. But ultimately
that gets sold that auction through Christy's to hobby lobby
who buys it for an excess of one million. Wow
one million. So when I tell you there's a lot
of hands in these, you know, to try and find
the person who originally looted this thing from Iraq, it
(18:38):
is near impossible unless you had the access to the
London dealer, and even then who knows how many hands
it passed you before he got it.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
Well, so that's crazy that it went from unscrupulous immediately
to a really reputable auction house and that something that's crazy.
So since you brought it up, can you can you
walk me through the Hobby Lobby case? How was it
presented to you? How did it unfold? And then how
does something like a Christie's acquire something with absolutely no paperwork?
Speaker 2 (19:06):
The case unfolded just from simple targeting. You know, Brunt,
my mentor, he had been flagging shipments from a dealer
in Dubai for a long time. A number of antiquities
in the Middle East all funneled through Dubai, and in particular,
one shipper named Hassan Fazzelli was like the number one
shipper of illicit antiquities in Dubai. So Brynt had intercepted
(19:31):
some items from Fazzelli over the years, and it's like,
you know what, I need to flag this guy and
to keep an eye on what he's shipping, because already
three times now every time I open up a package
from Fazzelli, it's problematic. So sure enough Fizzelli is shipping
to Hobby Lobby and the customs agents hit on the
(19:51):
record and they go to inspect the packages and they're
not wrapped like museum quality. There are a bunch of
canearform tablets thrown in a box, literally thrown in a box,
just the crumbling, like what is this? And they're going
to Hobby Lobby. Hobby Lobby has a massive complex in
Oklahoma City.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
And there by the way, they were going to Hobby Lobby,
not specifically to the museum, they were going to the corporate.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
Headquarters as that it seem it's not built yet. Okay,
this is hobby Lobby itself, the arts and crafts, you know,
hobby Lobby, they're all over. Yeah. So the corporate building
itself is a massive complex. It's it's i don't know,
probably the size of like a few city blocks. And
because they have so many arts and crafts coming in
from all over the world that they have to inventory
shipments coming in. There are multiple docks loading docks and
(20:42):
entry points to the building. Each of those entry points
has an address, a physical mailing address you can send
something to. Okay, so if you're sending beads, beads go
to one address of the block. If you're sending you know,
material for scarves, they would go somewhere else. So it's
like I have addresses, these canai formed tablets coming from Fazzelli.
(21:06):
We're each addressed to a different address of the same
complex around the block. Okay, okay, now why would you
do that? Quite simply, if one particular address was being targeted,
then the other ones will make it through. It is
the basics of smuggling. If I'm going to send material
to you and you have three addresses, I'm going to
(21:27):
send them to all three and hope that some of
them get through in case Customs is targeting one particular address.
Now I've told you before earlier in the show. Here,
who's responsible for the accuracy of the importation paperwork? Not Fazzelli?
Oh right, this i'by a lobby. The importer on record
is responsible for the accuracy of all documentations submitted to Customs.
(21:52):
So you can't hide behind both Fazzelli ship me stuff
he wasn't supposed to. You're responsible. And so the more
we started digging into this, the more we saw that
there were plans to build a Bible museum. And so
the owner of Hobby Lobby, Steve Green, goes on a
(22:12):
massive buying spree of artifacts that may have had a
connection to the Bible so that he can open up
this new Bible museum. The problem is there are rules, right,
there are rules for importing artifacts. There again, we talked
about cultural patrimony laws and when it's okay for items
to leave a country. The fervor created by Steve Green
(22:34):
to get all of these artifacts spread throughout the ancient
artifact community. Everyone knew there was an American with deep
pockets who was spending top dollar to get artifacts. So
what is that going to do. It's going to spur
more smuggling, right, It's going to spur more looters. It's
going to spur more shady people coming out of the
(22:55):
woodwork offering to sell something with a connection to the Bibles.
They can make a buck. And unfortunately Steve Green chucked
it up to naivete in the art collecting world that
you just didn't know the rules and didn't know what
he was doing and just bought things without taking the
time to properly vet them and as a result bought
a lot of material that was illicit.
Speaker 1 (23:18):
I mean, this was such a massive case, right, So
from that initial like, hey, we are realizing what's happening,
and we see who's responsible. From there to a conviction,
what's the process.
Speaker 2 (23:29):
So the question is, does Hobby Lobby know that on
the importation paperwork they're described as ceramic tiles? These are
ancient artifacts, These are not crambic. But you know what,
ceramic tiles going to an arts and craft store wouldn't
raise any belts Right right now, we already know Hobbi
Lobby is responsible for the paperwork because they had the
(23:50):
import or a record. So that's enough for customs to
seize all the material, which we did. Now can you
go the next step? Can you charge them with smuggling?
Can you prove that they knew that the pieces were
illicit and that they improperly imported them. I thought we
had enough. I thought in interviewing all the employees and
(24:12):
looking at all the emails. I traveled to Israel and
interviewed the dealers who sold the material to Hobby Lobby.
I thought we had enough to convict. But ultimately that
decision rests with the US Attorney's office, and they determined
the evidence wasn't sufficient, and so there was not a
conviction for smuggling. For Steve Greenoff for Hobby Lobby. Interesting,
(24:36):
but they did acknowledge that the artifacts were imported improperly,
and so they relinquished everything that had come in, including
stuff that had made it through to Hobby Lobby. A
couple of shipments made it through before we stopped the
ones at the port, so they relinquished all of those.
They paid three million dollars to the government and we
(24:57):
had a really successful repatriation at the Iraqi's Ambassador's residence
in Washington, DC was really really moved at the return
of all of the artifacts. And what was interesting was
the canea form described the particular city in Iraq. It's
called Erisa Grigg. Eresa Grig doesn't exist in modern literature.
(25:21):
It doesn't exist in any books. It doesn't people have
heard of it, and they thought it was this mysterious city.
Maybe it didn't really exist because there have been talks
about it, but there was no proof. These tablets actually
talked about the missing city in Iraq called Aresa Greek.
So it was the first time there was confirmation that
the city did exist, and it was on these tablets.
(25:44):
That's amazing that it was fascinating. So for his first
scholars and historians. They were salivating over the fact that
the tablets said that, like, well, you need to research this,
and they were pouring in.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
I'm a New Yorker, so I've been going to the Met.
I mean, I grew up outside the city, so I've
been on the MET since I was a kid, and
I was really interested to read about the return of
I think it was fourteen Cambodian statues. Still like going
to the Met and you'd see like, you know, okay,
here's this. My dad is Jane, so look at this
rare Jane statue from blah blah blah, right, and my
(26:18):
frust reaction would be I would mumble something like I
wonder when that was stolen, And then another kid would
look at the little plaque and be like, no, it's
from the what's it called family, It's on loan. I'm like, yeah,
that white family stolen at some point because it does
not have the name of a Jane family. It's not
like it's on loan from you know, the Shah family
or something. So ever, since then, I just remember and
(26:39):
I love the Met still, but it's always with a
little bit of speculation. I think you answered that question
that those you know if something came before a certain
year that there's an understanding of why it's there. Can
can you quickly walk us through the Cambodian case, how
that unfolded and what you're rolling was it?
Speaker 2 (26:56):
Yeah, So my predecessor's Branton and Dan Brasier had worked
on the Douglas Latchford investigation, and similar to how Brent
had targeted Fizzelli with shipments coming in, he had noticed
that Latchford's name was associated with Cambodian pieces that had
never been seen before that were excellent examples of Khmer
(27:19):
craftsmanship that you would have thought, because they're so superb,
they would have been talked about, they would have been seen,
There would have been some rumblings about wow, because you
have to see that piece in London when you were there. Nothing.
It just shows up time and time again. He's coming
up with the most remarkable pieces, and when you see
that as an investigator, you're like, Okay, something's not right,
(27:42):
Like how has no one seen these spectacular pieces of
art that when they're up at Christie's and they're up
at Sotheby's, people are raving that this is like so
rare and one of a kind. And yet no one's
seen it before. So Brenton and Dan Brazier started flagging
Latchford and saying, hey, this is someone who we need
to start paying more attention to men. Of course, there
(28:04):
was the big Diryodonic case. It was a statue that
was going through Southerby's and obviously it was problematic and
there was some legal challenges to and ultimately, you know,
people did the right thing and the statue was sent
back home. And that was the first instance where now
you see Douglas Latchford is dealing in dirty antiquities. The
(28:29):
investigators had gone to Campbodia and found the base and
the feet still intact for that statue, so it had
been chopped off and sent and who was the dealer
It was Latchford. So now you're like, wait a minute.
If that one was so obviously looted and trafficked, what
else of Latchford's is suspect? And so that's when we
(28:51):
opened up an investigation into him. I inherited the case
and we started pouring overall records all Latchford. We subpoened
Christie's and Southey. He started going through all the records
and pieces at the mad pieces. I mean, he was
so prolific. There are latchered pieces everywhere. Probably about a
(29:12):
dozen US museums still have lactured pieces that are still
being investigated by HSI. They're not off the hook. So
if they're listening, their names on a list and you
may be getting a call from Homeland Security very soon.
Speaker 1 (29:28):
In the MET case where there are penalties or prosecutions
for any of the individuals involved in cases like that,
do they just hide behind the entity of the MET.
Is the individual also responsible or what ended up happening?
Speaker 2 (29:42):
It's hard. It's hard in this particular case, it's hard
because Lachford was crafty. He used a lot of false provenance.
He used the names of dead people to say that
the artifacts are in their collection. He always provided provenance.
It was inauthentic, but he provided it so you, as
(30:03):
a buyer, would be shielded from any prosecutions because you
actually have a provenance. Chet say, listen, I asked for provenance,
I got this sheep. It seemed okay, and so I
went through with the deal. So at least we have
evidence of them asking. Now we've since discovered that some
collectors conspired with Latchford to create false prominance. So those people, Yes,
(30:29):
we have convicted some people in the Latchford case for
their role.
Speaker 1 (30:32):
Is the pressure of your office ever enough for somebody
to just cooperate right out of the gate or do
they always wait for the threat of the prosecution.
Speaker 2 (30:43):
I would say that there's two things that drive that. Certainly,
the pressure, right, you know, the government's scary. When the
government shows up and knocks on your door, have a
warren in my hand or a subpoena, people genuinely get
frightened and they're like, oh, governments here. You know, I
don't want any trouble. What did I do? I have
(31:03):
an artifact? Yeah, there you go. I want no trouble.
I'm out here. So certainly there's that. The fear of
dealing with the federal government certainly exists. But sometimes it's
just people are genuinely good. They don't have that fear,
but they they're like, you know what the right thing
to do here is to get the artifacts back home.
(31:24):
And a good example of that is in the Latchford case.
One of the private collectors who had a mass, a
huge collection was Jim Clark. Jim Clark was the founder
of Netscape. You know, before Yahoo, and there was Netscape,
and he describes himself as having become nouveau rich overnight
sold Netscape and made a ton of money and decided
(31:48):
to decorate his home with Cambodian statues. And who did
he deal with? He dealt with Latchford, you know, unknowingly
and spent millions of dollars in Cambodian artifacts, millions, maybe
thirty million, beautifully decorated home with fabulous pieces, some spectacular,
(32:10):
premier statues. And so when approached and we showed him
some of the evidence, and we showed him who Lachford
was and what he was about, he did the right thing.
He said, listen, you know, these statues should go back
and Lasford was a crook and I should have done
more research, but I took them on face value and
I'm going to give these back and he just he
(32:31):
signed them all the way right back to us. So
it was a tremendous win for Cambodia. It's a tremendous
win for the government. And hats off to Jim Clark
for doing the right thing. And I think more collectors
and museums should follow that lead.
Speaker 1 (32:43):
Yeah, that's great. Do you have a sense of what's
going to happen to the future of this department. Is
it still is it well supported, is it well funded?
Does it fluctuate depending on things that are happening in
government overall?
Speaker 2 (32:57):
Yeah, I would say sadly for me and for people
who are passionate about the arts and cultural property investigations,
it maybe is not at the forefront of HSIGN New
York's mindset when it comes to resources, when it comes
to what we're putting in for funding for traveling to
(33:21):
go interview a witness. It seems like the cultural property
cases are on the on the bottom of the totem
poll for whatever reason, they don't seem to get the
same attention as the justifiably, like the child pornography cases
are probably at the top of the list, and they
should be, you know, nir cotics cases get a ton
of money and going down the list, and cultural property
(33:41):
somewhere in the middle, towards the bottom. Unfortunately, and there
are periods of time where resources shift. Allocation of resources
is a necessary thing for every entity, even the government,
and so when you're looking to pull bodies, oftentimes they
pull from cultural property because the work for whatever reason,
it's just not perceived to be important, maybe is the word.
(34:06):
And I think that's sad, because for the agents who
do this work, we consider it to be some of
the most important work that we do. If you've attended
a repatriation ceremony and you see the genuine outpouring of
affection that the receiving country has towards us and towards
the fact that they're getting their pieces back. I mean,
(34:29):
I've seen people cry at ceremonies and in the host
country when we're returning artifacts to them, they're so moved.
Speaker 1 (34:37):
I had the pleasure of serving on the President's Committee
on the Arts and Humanities under President Obama, and after
the earthquake in Haiti, which was I think twenty ten,
the President's Committee had a fundraising mechanism so they could
raise money privately as well, and raised a bunch of
money to protect, rebuild, and preserve a bunch of Haitian
(34:57):
cultural artifacts and Port of Prince. And it was at
a time where obviously, understandably, most of the humanitarian funding
from I think it was the Bush Clinton Haiti Fund
at the time was going towards you know, humans, as
they should, but there was a real concern and fear
that a lot of these artifacts would be trafficked out
of the country and then just literally be lost forever
(35:20):
unless they popped up, like you were saying, at an
auction house or something. I'm doing a piss poor job
at describing you at a whole career of making that happen.
So that's just I'm in awe of all these stories.
But even that little touch point, I just remember being like, Wow,
that's a thing that like we can and should do
more of.
Speaker 2 (35:36):
And I think it's underappreciated. I really do, you know,
from the US point of view, from the government's point
of view, I don't think they appreciate. And maybe everyone
should take the time to attend a repatriation ceremony so
they could see what I see and feel what I feel.
But it's palpable. And we returned some artifacts once to Nepal.
(35:58):
I swear to you, they were statues. They were not
very big, and they were not very valuable, And we
had a ceremony at the consulate in New York and
we returned the artifacts. They were so moved and so
touched that the Consul General was almost moved to tears,
And I was like, wow, like, and these weren't. They
weren't necessarily like so I didn't think they're so great significant,
(36:22):
but they were moved and it's something like that that
makes you realize they're all significant. Oh yeah, I mean
this is all of our human history. Right, People say, oh,
what's the big deal? You look at the recent great
example from hobby lobby. Some of those tablets tell stories
that are untold before. Right, there's history written down an
(36:46):
ancient script, and those tablets that if they were just
sitting in someone's mantle, would be lost forever. So, like
you know, they say it's a victimless crime. It's not.
It's not. Everyone suffers. All of humanity suffers when history
is erased.
Speaker 1 (36:59):
I have to as I told you the nerdy high
school version of me. But is it is it hard
for you to go to a museum? Like are you constantly?
Speaker 2 (37:06):
Oh yeah, all of us all so have worked. It's impossible.
We walk through and we look and we're like, and
we see names that we know, right, we see them,
we're like, oh my god, that's that came from so
and so. And then we'll walk down the aisle and
we'll see the problem once only goes back ten years
and we're like, are you serious, Like what is this?
And you walk around you could see chisel marks on
(37:27):
the back of the statue, and we're just like, so, yeah,
going to going to museums has been completely ruined from him.
Speaker 1 (37:34):
I had a feeling you were gonna either say that
or be like, yeah, everything's fine.
Speaker 2 (37:39):
We you know, no, it's horrible.
Speaker 1 (37:41):
Yeah, Jp, thank you. I really enjoyed this conversation. Your
stories are incredible.
Speaker 2 (37:48):
Well, thank you for having me. It's a pleasure to
be on.
Speaker 1 (37:53):
That was my guest, JP Lebot. He's a retired special
agent who worked in the US government's Cultural Property Art
in a antiquities unit. Here We Go Again as a
production of iHeart Podcasts and Snaffoo Media in association with
New Metric Media. Our executive producers are me Calpen Ed Helms,
(38:14):
Mike Falbo, Alissa Martino, Andy Kim, Pat Kelly, Chris Kelly,
and Dylan Fagan. Meghan tan is our producer and writer.
Dave Shumka is our producer and editor. Our consulting producer
is Romin Borsolino. Tory Smith is our associate producer. Theme
music by Chris Kelly, logo by Matt Gosson Legal review
from Daniel Welsh, Caroline Johnson, and Meghan Halson. Special thanks
(38:37):
to Glenn Bassner, Isaac Dunham, Adam Horn, Lane Klein, and
everyone at iHeart Podcasts, but especially Will Pearson, Carrie Lieberman
and Nikki Etour. Thanks for listening. Everybody, tell your friends
write a review. All of this helps. I appreciate you listening,
and until we go again, I'm Calpen
Have you ever had anything stolen like your wallet, or
your phone or your heart? Now, what would you do
if that stolen phone ended up in a museum like
five thousand miles away. During acts of war, things get
stolen a lot, and looting historical and cultural pieces during
(00:22):
these times of war is an old act of dominance.
It happened when the Romans invaded the Greeks, they stole
coins and statues and sacred objects. And it happened when
the Nazis invaded Europe and looted over six hundred and
fifty thousand art pieces that originally belonged to Jewish owners.
It's an act that's still happening today. In twenty twenty four,
(00:43):
the Metropolitan Museum of Art, one of my favorites right
here in New York City, physically returned fourteen statues to
Cambodia when they discovered that they had been looted during
decades of civil war. And in twenty twenty three, the
CEO of Hobby Lobby was indicted when he was found
to be at the center of stolen Iraqi pieces that
(01:04):
were for his Bible museum.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
We had a case of an Egyptian doctor. He came
into JFK with this luggage. There was not a single
piece of clothing in his banks. They were failed with
artifacts so fresh out of the ground that when we
were taking the pieces out, sand was drooping out of
the artifact. It covered the table and fell onto the floor,
(01:29):
all the sand from I mean, these were freshly excavated artifacts.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
JP Labot is a retired special agent who worked in
the US Government's Cultural Property, Art and Antiquities Unit. He
spent his career investigating stolen artifacts and returning them home.
He was part of the team that indicted the CEO
of Hobby Lobby and helped return the fourteen statues to Cambodia.
And today we're going to talk about the underbelly of
(01:54):
the antiquities trafficking industry, the Hobby Lobby case, and why
you should always always all customs agents that you're bringing
back twenty three bottles of wine from South Africa like
I did.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
Here we go, Agon, Agon Agon.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
Hey, I'm cal Pen and this is here We Go Again,
a show that takes today's trends and headlines and asks
why does history keep repeating itself? Here Lee go, Yeah,
(02:37):
thanks for being here.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
Thanks for having me. Yes, my name is John Paul Levat.
I'm a retired special agent from Homeland Security Investigations in
New York and I worked ten years in the Cultural Property,
Art and Antiquities Unit, investigating the smuggling of ancient artifacts.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
Jiffie, thanks for doing this, and you have one of
the most interesting jobs I think I've ever heard of.
For people listening, can you do your best to explain
what the job was, Slash is, including what you're doing now.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
Yeah, it's funny. It's so interesting that it drew me
into it within Homeland Security. So I had spent many
years working as an agent with Homeland Security Investigations in
New York, and after nine to eleven, the government merged
the immigration and customs components into one organization that created
(03:30):
Homeland Security. Underneath Homeland Security was ICE and ICE encompasses
the detention and deportation side of it. And it also
underneath the umbrella of ICE is the Homeland Security investigation side,
and those investigators, including myself, Wow, we looked at a
full range of investigations to explore, like money laundering, narcotics,
(03:56):
weapons trafficking, the exportation of munition to suspect countries and
so after being there for twenty years. I had done
a fair amount of narcotics cases, money laundering, what have you.
And I had heard, you know, twenty years in that
there was an agent in our office who was working
(04:17):
on the recovery of cultural artifacts. And I was like,
where have I been? Like why can't I get into that?
What am I do with these drug cases when I
give you recovering artifacts? So I did some inquiries in
the office and I actually sought the agent out and
found him. I'm like, hey, aren't you Brent Easter. Aren't
(04:37):
you the guy that does the cultural property cases? And
he's like, yeah, it's me. And he's like, I'm buried.
I could really use some help. And we hit the
ground running and he taught me all the ins and outs,
who the players were, who the collectors were, who the
bad guys were. And took menders wing probably in twenty thirteen,
and you know, by twenty fifteen were probably at our
(04:57):
most prolific.
Speaker 1 (04:59):
And is that that wing, the Cultural Property Art in
Antiquities Unit, is that what it was called.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
They created a dedicated squad called the Art and Antiquities Group. Okay,
and at various points we've had as few as four
and as many as eight agents working full time on
antiquities investigations, which is which is pretty impressive.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
And did you, like you'd mentioned you mentioned when you
heard that this was a job, you were like, why
am I doing drug cases? Were there cultural reference points
or things like as a kid that made you interested
in this or when you heard about it, was it
just a random like, Oh, I didn't know this was
a thing, Like was it like the Monument's Men or
any of those kinds of like movies or TV shows
that that made you think.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
You know, when you're in elementary school and you're with
the teacher and they tell you you know, at points
in life you're going to have a calling, and that
calling will sort of dictate you know, what you want
to do in life. So you could say I've had
I had a second calling. I had an original calling
in school. I wanted to be a federal agent from
as young as I can remember, and having achieved that
(06:04):
and having a successful career, I get a second calling
when I learn about the fact that there's these cultural
artifacts that are being trafficked and we're able to investigate
them and recover them and return them to where they
were stolen from it. Just again, it's like when you're
a kid and you're like, that's what I want to do,
Like I want that, I need that. I was captivated
(06:25):
by the idea, and so I had to spend a
lot of time on my own time just learning and
studying because you know, there's so many civilizations and styles
of art that it can be overwhelming.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
What are the kinds of laws that are applied? And
I guess what the question behind this question is, Like,
so I feel like because of shows like Law and
Order or you know, I mean there's ten shows about
things like this, people know, okay, like child pornographers should
be in prison, drug traffickers hold you know, they know
(07:00):
the problem with violence and international trafficking and all of this.
How would you for somebody who doesn't know, how would
you describe why your job is important and what are
the laws and the players at stake?
Speaker 2 (07:13):
I could tell you why the cultural property cases are different,
and that is because there exists a legal trade in artifacts.
So if you come across narcotics, they're inherently illegal. Right
as soon as soon as you come across a pounded
dope or some illegal narcotics, they're illegal. On their face.
(07:36):
Child pornography is illegal on its face, right, I could
run down the list of crimes coming across someone with
an artifact is not inherently illegal. There's a legal trade
in ancient artifacts, a flourishing trade. It's existed for a
long time. So just because you encounter an artifact at
the port of entry, or someone has a collection of artifacts,
(07:58):
doesn't mean they've done anything wrong. And that's what makes
it unique, and that's what makes it different. You then
have to investigate the provenance and the problenance is the
history of the artifact, who owned it, and trace that
ownership backwards through time so that you can be satisfied
it was in the marketplace at a time when cultural
(08:21):
property laws prohibiting its entry into trade into commerce existed.
So I'll give you a perfect example. The cultural patrimony
law for Egypt is nineteen eighty three. So if some
of these artifacts were already out of Egypt before nineteen
eighty three, we don't have a case. There's a legal
(08:43):
trade in there. But if it came out after eighty three,
there's a problem. So when we see someone with an
Egyptian artifact, we start tracing the history back to satisfy
ourselves that it left the country before eighty three, and
if it didn't, now we start sending sipena is out
getting more records, doing an investigation. And so every country
(09:03):
has a different cultural patrimoney law on a different date,
every country in the world. So you can imagine, you know,
for an agent working these cases, you have to be
versed in the cultural patrimoney law of every country on
the planet. It's a lot. It's a lot that.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
Sounds so complicated. How how do you how do you check? Like,
if there's an artifact that's two thousand years old, how
do you check whether it was removed in nineteen eighty
three or nineteen eighty four?
Speaker 2 (09:29):
You check the history, right, So let's say a particular
museum had it and they bought it in two thousand.
I'm using a rough okay, okay. You get the records
from who they bought it from, and you send a
subpoena to them, well, who'd you buy it from? Where's
the invoice? And they tell them us they bought it
in nineteen ninety three and there are no records before that, right,
(09:52):
Or sometimes they tell you, oh, I bought it any
in nanshypt on the street in nineteen eighty nine, ding
Ding Ding Ding Re and fleag We're like, okay, that
means you weren't allowed to take it out, So you'd
be surprised what we recover from. And we have a
lot of sources, not just a pen of power, but
we do email search warrants, we have informants. Informants are
(10:13):
a huge source of information because these are guys on
the ground who've been double crossed or maybe got cheated
out of a deal, and they're going to rat on
their co conspirators and they communicate with law enforcement all
the time. So informants are a huge, hugeail.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
I'm guessing that in the countries of origin, local dealers
may also be a challenge. Like I'm just thinking about
the amount of travel I've done where the person selling
you something and this isn't necessarily in the antiquities category,
but in the category of like, oh, I know, I'm
not allowed to bring this particular thing back to the US,
(10:49):
and like the merchant or the dealers like no, no,
you I have done so many of these you definitely
can just buy it and you just keep it in
your luggage and like, yeah, no, I'm not trying to
lose my global entry over this, but I would imagine
that at your level with what you're dealing with, are
there trustworthy dealers in antiquities and are there is it
like you said, is it like the guy on the street,
(11:10):
or are even the brick and mortar folks in some
of these countries are their challenges there too.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
So I would say there's three types of dealers. There's
they're reputable, they check the laws, they check the provenance.
They're only going to sell items that they've fully investigated
and are convinced are legal. You're going to have your
street guys, like the ones that you encounter who try
to put stuff in your luggage. You're looking to make
a buck. But the biggest challenge is you have a
(11:40):
reputable dealer, but they like to dabble. Every so long,
they'll get a rare piece that is just too good
to pass up. It's going to fetch a lot of money.
The paperwork for it is lousy, but you know what,
take a chance. And those are the ones that are
most problematic for us because on the face of it,
(12:01):
you see the dealer and you're like, Okay, these guys
have been good over time, but every so often they dabble,
and a lot of reputable dealers have fallen prey to
that lure of the one in a million piece that
they're going to get rich over. And I just want
your listeners to know that the person bringing the piece
(12:22):
in is responsible for what's in his bag. The person
who orders something shipped into the US is responsible for
what's put on a customs label. Okay, So I've had
a lot of time to say, well, the shipper told
me x y and Z. For a US law, the
importer of record is responsible for the accuracy of all
(12:45):
the documentation. So if someone puts a different country of origin,
they're selling you something from Iraq, but they put Turkey, okay,
and that comes in. The importer is responsible for those inaccuracies.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
Is the importer the purchaser? Yes, Since you're on this track,
I think this is so interesting for people to know.
What are the penalties.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
Well, certainly seizure right, seizure of your of your material.
And that's penalty enough because let's face it, these things
cost a lot of money. Yeah, using the customs broker
is key because the penalties are seizure of your material,
and I've seen material come in as cheap as seven
hundred dollars, and I've seen material come in over a million. Okay,
(13:25):
well you would have spent that money. The government will
seize it and you'll be out simply because you didn't
spend what eight hundred dollars one thousand dollars for customs broker.
I mean, especially if you're importing something of high value,
it's a no brain like why would you? Why would
you roll the dice and on? It's sort of like
an insurance on your on your shipment right now, if
we can prove that you knew that the lies were
(13:49):
on there right now, you can get charged with smuggling.
Oh right, okay, So and we've had that. We've had
an email exchange where the seller will say, hey, this
is from Yemen, but I'm going to change the country
of origin just so that it doesn't get flagged by
US customs, and the buyer will say what a good
idea in the email like okay, yeah, so that's an
(14:13):
easy smuggling case for us.
Speaker 1 (14:15):
Is this a good time to just also give a
shout out to like always declare what you're coming in with. Yes,
I'm shocked when I travel a lot. I'm always shocked
when friends who who either don't travel or travel as
much as I do just bring shit in that they're
not declaring. I'm like, dude, Like, I remember, I did
a show in South Africa a couple of years ago.
(14:36):
I'd never been to South Africa. Excellent wine in South Africa,
so much good wine, and it was relatively so cheap
compared to you know, New York City prices that I brought.
I brought twenty three bottles of wine back with me,
right and before doing this, you know, when on the
DHS website, I'm like, Okay, what is the duty that
I have to pay? And how do I declare this?
(14:57):
Because when you especially if you've got global entry, like
you kind to just walk through. So like, I need
to make sure I stop at the right place and
tell the right person. So I go through and I
go in the right place, and I talk to the
guy and he's like, why do you have twenty three
bottles of wine? I was like, have you ever been
to South Africa? Like there's amazing wine and I've just
never been there. So I brought back twenty three. But
I'm telling you because I want to I want to
do the right thing. I want to pay whatever I
(15:17):
owe you, And he just looks at me and he sighs,
and he's like, yeah, I'm not trying to do that
kind of paperwork for twenty three dollars. Just go ahead.
So I'm like, huh. And then friends who work in,
you know, in that line of work, were like, yeah,
a lot of times it's just about whether you're disclosing
it because if it's not the kind of unlike what
you do JP where it has significant impact on a lot.
(15:38):
But the point is even bringing a couple of bottles
of wine, like, declare that shit, because the penalty for
not doing it is huge.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
And like you say, sometimes there's just even the attempt
to declare is enough because for for a customs officer,
they're like, okay, they're complying with the law. The clearly
not trying to hide something. Here, we had a case
of an Egyptian doctor and he came into JFK with
this luggage. He had maybe two or three bags. There
(16:06):
was not a single piece of clothing in his bags.
They were failed with artifacts so fresh out of the
ground that when when we were taking the pieces out,
sand was drooping out of the artifact. It covered the
table and fell onto the floor all the sand from
I mean these were freshly excavated artifacts. Yeah, what did
(16:28):
he say? Oh? He ended up getting a guilty conviction
in the Eastern Dish of New York this last year.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
Was your office's job also to find the looters themselves?
Or does it stop at the mule?
Speaker 2 (16:48):
You know, the looters are always in the foreign country. Yeah,
so it's going to be really hard to prosecute the
looters because they're abroad. And then additionally, the looters are
so far moved. You know, there are a lot of
hands in this. I can give you a perfect example.
So I had a very famous case, the Gilgamesh tablet.
(17:10):
It's a canaiform tablet. Can air form is some of
the oldest form of writing, and it's basically done with
something that you can make impressions on clay and the
writings on it. Your canear form is the oldest form
of writing. The writings on it told a story of
Gilgamesh from the Bible. Extremely rare and extremely valuable. Well,
(17:33):
he had a dealer in London who had a bunch
of Iraqi canar form tablets, including this one, sold them
for ten thousand to collector who wasn't quite sure what
they had, ships everything to California. Once in California, he
sells the gild gimatablished by itself, for ten thousand. So
he's already made his money back from the trip, and
(17:55):
he still has a whole box of artifacts that he
can still sell, so he's made a profit already. The
book dealer realizes that this tablet is rare and gets
it read by an expert and realizes, holy geez, this
is something super valuable. Sells it for fifty thousand. The
person who buys it for fifty thousand said, this is
a score. I can get a lot more money for this,
(18:16):
sells it to someone in London. Oh come on, yeah,
I don't know the purchase price for that. But ultimately
that gets sold that auction through Christy's to hobby lobby
who buys it for an excess of one million. Wow
one million. So when I tell you there's a lot
of hands in these, you know, to try and find
the person who originally looted this thing from Iraq, it
(18:38):
is near impossible unless you had the access to the
London dealer, and even then who knows how many hands
it passed you before he got it.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
Well, so that's crazy that it went from unscrupulous immediately
to a really reputable auction house and that something that's crazy.
So since you brought it up, can you can you
walk me through the Hobby Lobby case? How was it
presented to you? How did it unfold? And then how
does something like a Christie's acquire something with absolutely no paperwork?
Speaker 2 (19:06):
The case unfolded just from simple targeting. You know, Brunt,
my mentor, he had been flagging shipments from a dealer
in Dubai for a long time. A number of antiquities
in the Middle East all funneled through Dubai, and in particular,
one shipper named Hassan Fazzelli was like the number one
shipper of illicit antiquities in Dubai. So Brynt had intercepted
(19:31):
some items from Fazzelli over the years, and it's like,
you know what, I need to flag this guy and
to keep an eye on what he's shipping, because already
three times now every time I open up a package
from Fazzelli, it's problematic. So sure enough Fizzelli is shipping
to Hobby Lobby and the customs agents hit on the
(19:51):
record and they go to inspect the packages and they're
not wrapped like museum quality. There are a bunch of
canearform tablets thrown in a box, literally thrown in a box,
just the crumbling, like what is this? And they're going
to Hobby Lobby. Hobby Lobby has a massive complex in
Oklahoma City.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
And there by the way, they were going to Hobby Lobby,
not specifically to the museum, they were going to the corporate.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
Headquarters as that it seem it's not built yet. Okay,
this is hobby Lobby itself, the arts and crafts, you know,
hobby Lobby, they're all over. Yeah. So the corporate building
itself is a massive complex. It's it's i don't know,
probably the size of like a few city blocks. And
because they have so many arts and crafts coming in
from all over the world that they have to inventory
shipments coming in. There are multiple docks loading docks and
(20:42):
entry points to the building. Each of those entry points
has an address, a physical mailing address you can send
something to. Okay, so if you're sending beads, beads go
to one address of the block. If you're sending you know,
material for scarves, they would go somewhere else. So it's
like I have addresses, these canai formed tablets coming from Fazzelli.
(21:06):
We're each addressed to a different address of the same
complex around the block. Okay, okay, now why would you
do that? Quite simply, if one particular address was being targeted,
then the other ones will make it through. It is
the basics of smuggling. If I'm going to send material
to you and you have three addresses, I'm going to
(21:27):
send them to all three and hope that some of
them get through in case Customs is targeting one particular address.
Now I've told you before earlier in the show. Here,
who's responsible for the accuracy of the importation paperwork? Not Fazzelli?
Oh right, this i'by a lobby. The importer on record
is responsible for the accuracy of all documentations submitted to Customs.
(21:52):
So you can't hide behind both Fazzelli ship me stuff
he wasn't supposed to. You're responsible. And so the more
we started digging into this, the more we saw that
there were plans to build a Bible museum. And so
the owner of Hobby Lobby, Steve Green, goes on a
(22:12):
massive buying spree of artifacts that may have had a
connection to the Bible so that he can open up
this new Bible museum. The problem is there are rules, right,
there are rules for importing artifacts. There again, we talked
about cultural patrimony laws and when it's okay for items
to leave a country. The fervor created by Steve Green
(22:34):
to get all of these artifacts spread throughout the ancient
artifact community. Everyone knew there was an American with deep
pockets who was spending top dollar to get artifacts. So
what is that going to do. It's going to spur
more smuggling, right, It's going to spur more looters. It's
going to spur more shady people coming out of the
(22:55):
woodwork offering to sell something with a connection to the Bibles.
They can make a buck. And unfortunately Steve Green chucked
it up to naivete in the art collecting world that
you just didn't know the rules and didn't know what
he was doing and just bought things without taking the
time to properly vet them and as a result bought
a lot of material that was illicit.
Speaker 1 (23:18):
I mean, this was such a massive case, right, So
from that initial like, hey, we are realizing what's happening,
and we see who's responsible. From there to a conviction,
what's the process.
Speaker 2 (23:29):
So the question is, does Hobby Lobby know that on
the importation paperwork they're described as ceramic tiles? These are
ancient artifacts, These are not crambic. But you know what,
ceramic tiles going to an arts and craft store wouldn't
raise any belts Right right now, we already know Hobbi
Lobby is responsible for the paperwork because they had the
(23:50):
import or a record. So that's enough for customs to
seize all the material, which we did. Now can you
go the next step? Can you charge them with smuggling?
Can you prove that they knew that the pieces were
illicit and that they improperly imported them. I thought we
had enough. I thought in interviewing all the employees and
(24:12):
looking at all the emails. I traveled to Israel and
interviewed the dealers who sold the material to Hobby Lobby.
I thought we had enough to convict. But ultimately that
decision rests with the US Attorney's office, and they determined
the evidence wasn't sufficient, and so there was not a
conviction for smuggling. For Steve Greenoff for Hobby Lobby. Interesting,
(24:36):
but they did acknowledge that the artifacts were imported improperly,
and so they relinquished everything that had come in, including
stuff that had made it through to Hobby Lobby. A
couple of shipments made it through before we stopped the
ones at the port, so they relinquished all of those.
They paid three million dollars to the government and we
(24:57):
had a really successful repatriation at the Iraqi's Ambassador's residence
in Washington, DC was really really moved at the return
of all of the artifacts. And what was interesting was
the canea form described the particular city in Iraq. It's
called Erisa Grigg. Eresa Grig doesn't exist in modern literature.
(25:21):
It doesn't exist in any books. It doesn't people have
heard of it, and they thought it was this mysterious city.
Maybe it didn't really exist because there have been talks
about it, but there was no proof. These tablets actually
talked about the missing city in Iraq called Aresa Greek.
So it was the first time there was confirmation that
the city did exist, and it was on these tablets.
(25:44):
That's amazing that it was fascinating. So for his first
scholars and historians. They were salivating over the fact that
the tablets said that, like, well, you need to research this,
and they were pouring in.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
I'm a New Yorker, so I've been going to the Met.
I mean, I grew up outside the city, so I've
been on the MET since I was a kid, and
I was really interested to read about the return of
I think it was fourteen Cambodian statues. Still like going
to the Met and you'd see like, you know, okay,
here's this. My dad is Jane, so look at this
rare Jane statue from blah blah blah, right, and my
(26:18):
frust reaction would be I would mumble something like I
wonder when that was stolen, And then another kid would
look at the little plaque and be like, no, it's
from the what's it called family, It's on loan. I'm like, yeah,
that white family stolen at some point because it does
not have the name of a Jane family. It's not
like it's on loan from you know, the Shah family
or something. So ever, since then, I just remember and
(26:39):
I love the Met still, but it's always with a
little bit of speculation. I think you answered that question
that those you know if something came before a certain
year that there's an understanding of why it's there. Can
can you quickly walk us through the Cambodian case, how
that unfolded and what you're rolling was it?
Speaker 2 (26:56):
Yeah, So my predecessor's Branton and Dan Brasier had worked
on the Douglas Latchford investigation, and similar to how Brent
had targeted Fizzelli with shipments coming in, he had noticed
that Latchford's name was associated with Cambodian pieces that had
never been seen before that were excellent examples of Khmer
(27:19):
craftsmanship that you would have thought, because they're so superb,
they would have been talked about, they would have been seen,
There would have been some rumblings about wow, because you
have to see that piece in London when you were there. Nothing.
It just shows up time and time again. He's coming
up with the most remarkable pieces, and when you see
that as an investigator, you're like, Okay, something's not right,
(27:42):
Like how has no one seen these spectacular pieces of
art that when they're up at Christie's and they're up
at Sotheby's, people are raving that this is like so
rare and one of a kind. And yet no one's
seen it before. So Brenton and Dan Brazier started flagging
Latchford and saying, hey, this is someone who we need
to start paying more attention to men. Of course, there
(28:04):
was the big Diryodonic case. It was a statue that
was going through Southerby's and obviously it was problematic and
there was some legal challenges to and ultimately, you know,
people did the right thing and the statue was sent
back home. And that was the first instance where now
you see Douglas Latchford is dealing in dirty antiquities. The
(28:29):
investigators had gone to Campbodia and found the base and
the feet still intact for that statue, so it had
been chopped off and sent and who was the dealer
It was Latchford. So now you're like, wait a minute.
If that one was so obviously looted and trafficked, what
else of Latchford's is suspect? And so that's when we
(28:51):
opened up an investigation into him. I inherited the case
and we started pouring overall records all Latchford. We subpoened
Christie's and Southey. He started going through all the records
and pieces at the mad pieces. I mean, he was
so prolific. There are latchered pieces everywhere. Probably about a
(29:12):
dozen US museums still have lactured pieces that are still
being investigated by HSI. They're not off the hook. So
if they're listening, their names on a list and you
may be getting a call from Homeland Security very soon.
Speaker 1 (29:28):
In the MET case where there are penalties or prosecutions
for any of the individuals involved in cases like that,
do they just hide behind the entity of the MET.
Is the individual also responsible or what ended up happening?
Speaker 2 (29:42):
It's hard. It's hard in this particular case, it's hard
because Lachford was crafty. He used a lot of false provenance.
He used the names of dead people to say that
the artifacts are in their collection. He always provided provenance.
It was inauthentic, but he provided it so you, as
(30:03):
a buyer, would be shielded from any prosecutions because you
actually have a provenance. Chet say, listen, I asked for provenance,
I got this sheep. It seemed okay, and so I
went through with the deal. So at least we have
evidence of them asking. Now we've since discovered that some
collectors conspired with Latchford to create false prominance. So those people, Yes,
(30:29):
we have convicted some people in the Latchford case for
their role.
Speaker 1 (30:32):
Is the pressure of your office ever enough for somebody
to just cooperate right out of the gate or do
they always wait for the threat of the prosecution.
Speaker 2 (30:43):
I would say that there's two things that drive that. Certainly,
the pressure, right, you know, the government's scary. When the
government shows up and knocks on your door, have a
warren in my hand or a subpoena, people genuinely get
frightened and they're like, oh, governments here. You know, I
don't want any trouble. What did I do? I have
(31:03):
an artifact? Yeah, there you go. I want no trouble.
I'm out here. So certainly there's that. The fear of
dealing with the federal government certainly exists. But sometimes it's
just people are genuinely good. They don't have that fear,
but they they're like, you know what the right thing
to do here is to get the artifacts back home.
(31:24):
And a good example of that is in the Latchford case.
One of the private collectors who had a mass, a
huge collection was Jim Clark. Jim Clark was the founder
of Netscape. You know, before Yahoo, and there was Netscape,
and he describes himself as having become nouveau rich overnight
sold Netscape and made a ton of money and decided
(31:48):
to decorate his home with Cambodian statues. And who did
he deal with? He dealt with Latchford, you know, unknowingly
and spent millions of dollars in Cambodian artifacts, millions, maybe
thirty million, beautifully decorated home with fabulous pieces, some spectacular,
(32:10):
premier statues. And so when approached and we showed him
some of the evidence, and we showed him who Lachford
was and what he was about, he did the right thing.
He said, listen, you know, these statues should go back
and Lasford was a crook and I should have done
more research, but I took them on face value and
I'm going to give these back and he just he
(32:31):
signed them all the way right back to us. So
it was a tremendous win for Cambodia. It's a tremendous
win for the government. And hats off to Jim Clark
for doing the right thing. And I think more collectors
and museums should follow that lead.
Speaker 1 (32:43):
Yeah, that's great. Do you have a sense of what's
going to happen to the future of this department. Is
it still is it well supported, is it well funded?
Does it fluctuate depending on things that are happening in
government overall?
Speaker 2 (32:57):
Yeah, I would say sadly for me and for people
who are passionate about the arts and cultural property investigations,
it maybe is not at the forefront of HSIGN New
York's mindset when it comes to resources, when it comes
to what we're putting in for funding for traveling to
(33:21):
go interview a witness. It seems like the cultural property
cases are on the on the bottom of the totem
poll for whatever reason, they don't seem to get the
same attention as the justifiably, like the child pornography cases
are probably at the top of the list, and they
should be, you know, nir cotics cases get a ton
of money and going down the list, and cultural property
(33:41):
somewhere in the middle, towards the bottom. Unfortunately, and there
are periods of time where resources shift. Allocation of resources
is a necessary thing for every entity, even the government,
and so when you're looking to pull bodies, oftentimes they
pull from cultural property because the work for whatever reason,
it's just not perceived to be important, maybe is the word.
(34:06):
And I think that's sad, because for the agents who
do this work, we consider it to be some of
the most important work that we do. If you've attended
a repatriation ceremony and you see the genuine outpouring of
affection that the receiving country has towards us and towards
the fact that they're getting their pieces back. I mean,
(34:29):
I've seen people cry at ceremonies and in the host
country when we're returning artifacts to them, they're so moved.
Speaker 1 (34:37):
I had the pleasure of serving on the President's Committee
on the Arts and Humanities under President Obama, and after
the earthquake in Haiti, which was I think twenty ten,
the President's Committee had a fundraising mechanism so they could
raise money privately as well, and raised a bunch of
money to protect, rebuild, and preserve a bunch of Haitian
(34:57):
cultural artifacts and Port of Prince. And it was at
a time where obviously, understandably, most of the humanitarian funding
from I think it was the Bush Clinton Haiti Fund
at the time was going towards you know, humans, as
they should, but there was a real concern and fear
that a lot of these artifacts would be trafficked out
of the country and then just literally be lost forever
(35:20):
unless they popped up, like you were saying, at an
auction house or something. I'm doing a piss poor job
at describing you at a whole career of making that happen.
So that's just I'm in awe of all these stories.
But even that little touch point, I just remember being like, Wow,
that's a thing that like we can and should do
more of.
Speaker 2 (35:36):
And I think it's underappreciated. I really do, you know,
from the US point of view, from the government's point
of view, I don't think they appreciate. And maybe everyone
should take the time to attend a repatriation ceremony so
they could see what I see and feel what I feel.
But it's palpable. And we returned some artifacts once to Nepal.
(35:58):
I swear to you, they were statues. They were not
very big, and they were not very valuable, And we
had a ceremony at the consulate in New York and
we returned the artifacts. They were so moved and so
touched that the Consul General was almost moved to tears,
And I was like, wow, like, and these weren't. They
weren't necessarily like so I didn't think they're so great significant,
(36:22):
but they were moved and it's something like that that
makes you realize they're all significant. Oh yeah, I mean
this is all of our human history. Right, People say, oh,
what's the big deal? You look at the recent great
example from hobby lobby. Some of those tablets tell stories
that are untold before. Right, there's history written down an
(36:46):
ancient script, and those tablets that if they were just
sitting in someone's mantle, would be lost forever. So, like
you know, they say it's a victimless crime. It's not.
It's not. Everyone suffers. All of humanity suffers when history
is erased.
Speaker 1 (36:59):
I have to as I told you the nerdy high
school version of me. But is it is it hard
for you to go to a museum? Like are you constantly?
Speaker 2 (37:06):
Oh yeah, all of us all so have worked. It's impossible.
We walk through and we look and we're like, and
we see names that we know, right, we see them,
we're like, oh my god, that's that came from so
and so. And then we'll walk down the aisle and
we'll see the problem once only goes back ten years
and we're like, are you serious, Like what is this?
And you walk around you could see chisel marks on
(37:27):
the back of the statue, and we're just like, so, yeah,
going to going to museums has been completely ruined from him.
Speaker 1 (37:34):
I had a feeling you were gonna either say that
or be like, yeah, everything's fine.
Speaker 2 (37:39):
We you know, no, it's horrible.
Speaker 1 (37:41):
Yeah, Jp, thank you. I really enjoyed this conversation. Your
stories are incredible.
Speaker 2 (37:48):
Well, thank you for having me. It's a pleasure to
be on.
Speaker 1 (37:53):
That was my guest, JP Lebot. He's a retired special
agent who worked in the US government's Cultural Property Art
in a antiquities unit. Here We Go Again as a
production of iHeart Podcasts and Snaffoo Media in association with
New Metric Media. Our executive producers are me Calpen Ed Helms,
(38:14):
Mike Falbo, Alissa Martino, Andy Kim, Pat Kelly, Chris Kelly,
and Dylan Fagan. Meghan tan is our producer and writer.
Dave Shumka is our producer and editor. Our consulting producer
is Romin Borsolino. Tory Smith is our associate producer. Theme
music by Chris Kelly, logo by Matt Gosson Legal review
from Daniel Welsh, Caroline Johnson, and Meghan Halson. Special thanks
(38:37):
to Glenn Bassner, Isaac Dunham, Adam Horn, Lane Klein, and
everyone at iHeart Podcasts, but especially Will Pearson, Carrie Lieberman
and Nikki Etour. Thanks for listening. Everybody, tell your friends
write a review. All of this helps. I appreciate you listening,
and until we go again, I'm Calpen
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