The daughter of famous accused antiquities smuggler Douglas Latchford will hand over a 7th-century Vietnamese statue and $12 million of her father’s cash in a regulation finalized yesterday, June 22 at the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York. The agreement marks the largest confiscation of profits from looted antiquities to date.
Latchford has spent nearly half a century systematically placing stolen objects from Southeast Asia into the hands of Western art collectors and museums. In 2019, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York charged Latchford for his criminal operations in Cambodia. He died a year later in 2020 at the age of 88. He lived mainly in Thailand, where he died, and in the United Kingdom.
Although Latchford operated illegally for decades, yesterday’s massive settlement only reflects his US sales between 2003 and 2020. In those 17 years, Latchford earned over $12 million selling looted items in Southeast Asia, most of which were from Cambodia. He hid the money in bank accounts in New York, UK, and Jersey, a self-governing Channel Island under the British crown.
In 2021, Latchford’s daughter, Julia Copleton, agreed to feedback 125 of his late father’s objects in Cambodia. These artifacts were valued at over $50 million. Now Copleton has 90 days to return the 7th century Vietnamese statue to the US Department of Homeland Security outpost in the UK: In the late 2000s, Latchford used part of the proceeds from his illicit dealings to purchase the bronze sculpture, which depicts the Hindu goddess Durga.
According to civil complaint, Latchford traveled to Vietnam in 2008 and then asked a bank employee to wire $1.5 million to an anonymous person with a Vietnamese email address. In early 2009, Latchford sent a photo of the recently unearthed Durga statue to an (also anonymous) US dealer with the obviously suspicious subject line, “CONFIDENTIAL FOR YOUR EYES ONLY – DO NOT SHOW ANYONE”. A restorer who worked frequently with Latchford said the bronze statue was corroded and had iron deposits, suggesting it had been recently excavated. Latchford published a photo of the statue in a 2011 book and wrote that the sculpture was “unpublished”.
In 2011, Latchford attempted to sell the Durga statue to an American collector. He said the sculpture was from Cambodia, not Vietnam, and the artifact had a provenance dating back to the 1960s. The collector did not purchase the looted work and the sculpture remained in Latchford’s personal possessions.
Copleton has denied any wrongdoing and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York declared that the financial settlement does not mean his guilt. The office also said yesterday’s settlement does not mean the Latchford investigation is over.
Latchford hasn’t flown under the radar as he has spent decades looting artefacts. In 2009, he even received a official honor from the Cambodian government after returning six gold artifacts. In 2012, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York filed a civil lawsuit complaint against Latchford for his involvement in the 1975 theft of the 10th-century Cambodian “Duryodhana” statue, which was literally knocked down at his feet. Latchford denied the charges. In 2014, this statue was repatriated. A year earlier, the Metropolitan Museum of Art had income two Khmer sculptures related to Latchford in Cambodia.
While admitting his criminal activities, accounts of Latchford’s life published as recently as 2020 and 2021 favorably name him a “Specialist in Khmer antiquities” And “learnedeven when Latchford’s ties to antiquities smuggling had been public for nearly a decade and he had been formally charged.
The 2019 indictment, however, ultimately appeared to open the floodgates for further investigations into Latchford’s looted assets. objects in museum collections, including those of the Met, the British Museum and the Denver Art Museum. This last one too abandoned the name of donor and Latchford collaborator Emma Bunker earlier this year. The United States has income some of these stolen antiquities in Cambodia.
