Smuggling and the Museums

An article in the online version of Bloomberg reports on an Italian court case that names several important important museums as defendents in an artifact smuggling trial of convicted antiquities trafficker Giacomo Medici (Italy) and his business partner Robert Hecht (US). Former Getty Museum antiquities chief Marion True is named as a defendant, and Italian authorities have evidence that objects in many of the most important museums in the United States came from the looting activities of Medici and Hecht, including the Metropolitan Museum in New York, Princeton University Museum, and the Boston Museum of Fine Arts in addition to the Getty.

Artifact looting is a lucrative business, and it has long been rumored that museums have been complicit in such activities. In 2003 Colin Renfrew named the Getty, the Metropolitan and Boston's MFA as guilty of buying looted artifacts. The proven connection of these important museums to smuggling operations, if upheld, will likely be earth-shattering.

Bloomberg.com | Tomb-Robbing Trials Name Getty, Metropolitan, Princeton Museums

Image courtesy Karen Olsen Bruhns.