Throughout Cambodia’s long years of civil war, the country’s cultural patrimony was systematically looted. In remote areas of the country, centuries-old Angkorian temples were ransacked; hundreds of sacred sculptures were stolen, cut from sandstone pedestals and chiseled from bas-reliefs. They were then funneled secretly into the demimonde of the international art world.
The person most responsible for this plunder was Douglas Latchford, a British expatriate whose decades-long obsession with the Angkorian Empire led him to assemble one of the largest collections of Khmer antiquities in the world. “Dynamite Doug,” as he was known prior to his death in 2020, laundered the origin of these stolen items and helped to channel them into Western museums and the private collections of the rich – all while being feted across the globe as a leading expert on the art of the Angkorian Empire.
Latchford’s life is the subject of a new book by Matthew Campbell, a journalist at Bloomberg Businessweek, which examines in detail his role in the Cambodian antiquities trade, as well as the supportive role played by international art dealers and prominent Western museums.
Campbell spoke to The Diplomat’s Sebastian Strangio about how Latchford facilitated the theft of Cambodia’s cultural patrimony, the complicity of the international art world, and how some of these precious relics are now starting to return home.
