Federal officials Thursday will confiscate $12 million from the daughter of an accused antiquities trafficker from her property as part of a settlement of a civil lawsuit that accused her father of profiting from selling stolen Cambodian artifacts. announced that it had agreed to
The daughter of Mr. Douglas A.J. Ratchford, a scholar and dealer of ancient Khmer artefacts, who died in 2020, is also the daughter of Mr. Ratchford, who federal authorities claim was purchased with illegally obtained funds in the 7th century. agreed to hand over the statue from Vietnam.
Latchford’s daughter, identified as Julia Coulston in court documents, inherited more than 125 statues and gold artifacts that authorities said had been looted from Cambodia, as well as an unknown amount of money from her father.
In 2021, she reached an agreement with the Cambodian government to return the items. Since then, negotiations over Latchford’s financial accounts have continued.
“The late Douglas Ratchford was a prolific dealer of stolen antiquities,” Ivan J. Alvero, the special agent for homeland security investigations, said in a statement announcing the settlement. “His complicity in numerous illegal transactions over the decades has earned him millions of dollars in payments from U.S. buyers and dealers, of which $12 million is rightfully hiss as part of this agreement. It will be confiscated from the property.”
Ratchford was indicted in 2019 by federal prosecutors in New York on trafficking in looted Cambodian artifacts and document forgery, stating that he had “made a career in smuggling and illegally selling valuable Cambodian artifacts, often obtained directly from archaeological sites.” has been built,” he said. The charges were dismissed, however, as Mr. Ratchford died the following year at the age of 88.
Recently, a reformed looter, Tuk Tik, who said he led a gang looting Khmer-era temples for 20 years, came forward to identify areas in Cambodia where he helped loot various antiquities. He said some of the most famous artifacts that Talk Tick claimed to have stolen were eventually put up for sale on the market by Latchford. According to Tork Tick’s account, Latchford directed much of the looting through his intermediaries, even reviewing photographs of temples taken by Tork Tick to determine which items to steal. .
The Cambodian government has had some success in recent years trying to recover looted antiquities, and is pursuing several museums in the United States and elsewhere.
Talks between Cambodia and the Metropolitan Museum of Art are currently pending, and Cambodian authorities believe dozens of looted items are in storage, some of which were donated or sold to the museum by Ratchford. It states that
In a statement, officials with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, who were in charge of the civil case, said Mr. Ratchford provided false records of provenance when the antiquities were brought in as part of the sale, as well as transportation. He said he made false statements about records and import records. to the United States. Officials said Ratchford maintained bank accounts in Jersey, New York, England and transferred at least $12 million of the tainted proceeds to a Jersey bank account.
Officials said the U.S. Justice Department would decide later on what to do with the money.
A confiscated 7th-century bronze statue depicting the four-armed goddess Durga was stolen from a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Vietnam by federal authorities. Emails recovered from Mr. Latchford’s computer confirm his role in the theft, officials said.
