The estate of Douglas Latchford, the disgraced antiquities dealer, has handed over $12 million and an antique statue to settle a civil case in the US.
In 2019, Douglas E. Latchford – who was a well-known antiquities dealer at that point – was alleged to be involved in the large-scale trafficking of stolen antique objects from other countries. A case registered in Southern District Court in New York alleged that Latchford “built a career out of the smuggling and illicit sale of priceless Cambodian antiquities, often straight from archaeological sites”. Latchford died in 2020.
His daughter (legal name: Julia Copleston) is said to have inherited an undisclosed amount of money as well as over 125 artifacts from her father. She, along with the estate of Douglas Latchford, have agreed to return the stolen artifacts to Cambodia, as well as any other ‘tainted’ objects that might have been stolen/smuggled. It was part of these agreements that they have agreed to pay $12 million – a portion of the money Latchford profiteered from smuggled antiques – to the US government. Also a part of the settlement is a 17th-century Vietnamese bronze statue.
Ivan J. Arvelo (Special Agent, US Homeland Security) said: “The late Douglas Latchford was a prolific dealer of stolen antiquities. His complicity in numerous illicit transactions over several decades garnered him millions of dollars in payments from buyers and dealers in the United States, of which as part of this agreement, $12 million will be rightfully forfeited by his estate.”
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The Cambodian government had been an instrumental force in taking down the illegal empire of Douglas Latchford. Over the past few years, Cambodia has been vocal about restituting antique artifacts that have been looted from their country. They have also been pressurizing museums like the MMA, which has many stolen objects gifted to them by dealers like Latchford.
