News
Manhattan DA’s Office Is After Its Own Antiquities Trafficking Informant
Lebanese art dealer Georges Lotfi, who once helped authorities seize looted antiquities, is now accused of doing his own share of trafficking too.
Art Crime
Art
A New VR Experience Takes You Into a Museum of Stolen Masterpieces
The “Stolen Art Gallery” features five works by Caravaggio, Rembrandt, Manet, Cézanne, and van Gogh, long lost to public view but fully visible in the metaverse.
News
Louvre Advisors Detained in Art Trafficking Investigation
The news comes after former Louvre President Jean-Luc Martinez was charged in May with concealing the origins of illegally smuggled Egyptian antiquities.
News
Weekend Shooting Forces MFA Boston Into Lockdown
The museum shuttered for an hour on Saturday after a man was shot nearby, one of several recent incidents in the city involving an unlawful weapon.
News
Italy Thwarts Potential Illegal Sale of $2M Artemisia Gentileschi Painting
The Carabinieri's art crime unit said Gentileschi's masterpiece "Caritas Romana" was on its way to be sold in Vienna.
News
British Geologist Who Took Pottery Shards From Iraqi Site Gets 15-Year Sentence
Jim Fitton was found guilty of smuggling antiquities after 12 small pottery shards were found in his luggage at a Baghdad airport.
News
$2M Gold Tabernacle Stolen From Brooklyn Church
Also, an angel statue was decapitated and the eucharist thrown over the altar.
News
Man Breaks Into Dallas Museum and Smashes Over $1M Worth of Ancient Greek Art
21-year-old Brian Hernandez is accused of breaking into the museum by smashing a door with a steel chair.
News
NY District Attorney's Office Seizes Allegedly Looted Antiquities From the Met
The five ancient Egyptian works, worth over $3M, may be tied to an international trafficking ring.
News
"Brazen" Couple Tries to Walk Out of Manhattan Gallery With a Basquiat
The suspects attempted to take a Basquiat artwork valued at $45,000 from Taglialatella Galleries but instead made off with a half-empty bottle of whiskey.
News
Art Dealer Sentenced to Seven Years in Prison for $86M Fraud Scheme
Inigo Philbrick misrepresented the ownership of and fraudulently traded in works by Jean-Michel Basquiat, Yayoi Kusama, and others.
News
Ukraine Accuses Russia of Looting Over 2,000 Artworks
A handwritten Torah scroll and paintings by Arkhip Kuindzhi and Ivan Aivazovsky are among the works allegedly stolen from museums in Mariupol.