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Two 8th-century Buddhist statues have been returned to the Republic of Indonesia after being stolen as part of an organized looting network that then sold purloined items in the United States.The statues, which depict the bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara, had been sold to a U.S. collector by antiquities dealer Douglas Latchford, who withheld information to avoid revealing the items were stolen, the U.S. Department of Justice said in a news release.In 2021, the unnamed collector who bought them voluntarily relinquished for repatriation nearly three dozen Cambodian and Southeast Asian antiquities purchased from Latchford between 2003 and 2007."We celebrate the return of Indonesia’s cultural heritage to the Indonesian people," said Jay Clayton, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York. "It is with great pleasure that we send these artworks on the final leg of their journey home."The statues' repatriation was marked by a ceremony at the Indonesian consulate last week in New York.The two 8th-century bronze sculptures, which the department described as about 16 and 20 inches tall, depict the bodhisattva in a standing position. Both were illegally removed decades ago from archeological sites in Indonesia and sold to Latchford, a prominent Bangkok-based collector and dealer in Southeast Asian art and antiquities.Latchford was indicted in 2019 on wire fraud and other activities related to a multi-year scheme to sell looted Cambodian and other Southeast Asian antiquities on the international art market. According to a federal complaint, Latchford created false provenance documents and falsified invoices and shipping documents, even misrepresenting the artworks’ country of origin.When asked by the buyer for a map showing where particular items were found, the complaint said, Latchford would reply by saying the spots would be difficult to determine, "as in most cases they would have been unearthed by perhaps a farmer, who would have the passed it on to a middle man in Cambodia, so could have changed hands perhaps two or three times before I got it."The indictment was later dismissed with Latchford’s death in 2020.In 2023, the Justice Department settled a civil forfeiture action with Latchford's estate, which coughed up $12 million to resolve claims that the antiquities dealer transferred proceeds from the sale of stolen antiquities to offshore bank accounts.As part of the settlement, Latchford’s estate also forfeited a 7th-century bronze statue depicting the goddess Durga, alleged to have been stolen from Vietnam in 2008 and which Latchford allegedly purchased using tainted funds.
