D.A.’s Office also Returned 26 Antiquities to Bangladesh
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin L. Bragg, Jr., today announced the return of 43 antiquities, collectively valued at more than $2.5 million, to the people of Türkiye. These objects were recovered pursuant to multiple criminal investigations into antiquities trafficking networks including, among others, the global smuggling network that allegedly systematically plundered the ancient city of Bubon in south-central Türkiye.
The D.A.’s Office has been investigating looted Bubon antiquities trafficked into and through New York County since 2022. The ongoing investigation into Bubon has led to the seizure of 16 antiquities from Bubon, 15 of which have already been repatriated, collectively valued at almost $80 million.
In this ceremony we will be returning an over-life-sized bronze statue of a “Nude Emperor” that was looted from Bubon, trafficked through Manhattan, and purchased by collector Aaron Mendelsohn. Pursuant to a deferred prosecution agreement, Mendelsohn has agreed to surrender the statue of the Nude Emperor so that the D.A.’s Office can repatriate it to the people of Türkiye. Mendelsohn’s federal lawsuit challenging the Office’s investigation of the statue was also dismissed.
“The looting into ancient sites like Bubon were extensive, and I am pleased that our investigation has yielded such significant results. I thank the work of our prosecutors and analysts for their dedication to uncovering these trafficking networks that target ancient sites rich with cultural heritage,” said District Attorney Bragg.
“It takes real courage to challenge what is unjust. Today, the dedicated Antiquities Trafficking Unit of the DA’s Office is repatriating artifacts stolen from the Turkish people decades ago. The strong partnership we have built and sustained with determination has carried our national efforts onto the international stage. These restitutions not only reunite the heroes of these cases, but also send a clear message to the world: do not buy cultural property removed illegally from its country of origin. This is how a single return becomes a powerful tool against illicit excavations—and why this work matters more than ever,” said Gökhan Yazgı, Deputy Minister, Ministry of Culture and Tourism of the Republic of Türkiye.
In the 1960s, individuals from a village near Bubon began plundering a Sebasteion, an ancient shrine with monumental bronze statues of Roman emperors and selling those looted antiquities to smugglers based in the coastal Turkish city of Izmir. Working with Switzerland-based trafficker George Zakos and New York-and-Paris-based trafficker Robert Hecht, they unlawfully removed the looted antiquities from Türkiye, transporting them to Switzerland or the United Kingdom, and then onward to the United States or other European destinations. Once the statues were in the United States, New York-based dealers such as Jerome Eisenberg’s Royal-Athena Galleries and the Merrin Gallery funneled the stolen Bubon bronzes into museum exhibitions and academic publications thereby laundering the pieces with newly crafted provenance. As the Bubon pieces graced the halls of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (Met), the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Getty Museum, Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts, the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, the Worcester Museum of Art, and the Fordham Museum of Art, the reputational value of the institutions that displayed the Bubon pieces increased and the financial value of the statues grew.
Also being returned to the people of Türkiye in this ceremony is the Marble Head of Demosthenes, a larger-than-life Roman sculpture that depicts Demosthenes, a famed Athenian orator and politician from the 4th century BCE, who is best known for his speeches and for his opposition to Philip II of Macedon and Alexander the Great. This sculpture originated in Türkiye near the modern city of Izmir and first appeared on the art market in the possession of the New York-based Ariadne Galleries, before passing through the hands of several private collectors until it was donated to the Met in 2012. Ariadne Galleries allegedly falsely claimed that it had bought the Marble Head from Fortuna Fine Arts—claiming to have done so two years before Fortuna Fine Arts even existed. Ariadne and Fortuna, which is currently under indictment in federal court for fraud, also allegedly falsely claimed that the Marble Head had previously been in the collection of Boris Mussienko—a name Fortuna and other galleries allegedly frequently used to create false provenance. Law enforcement seized the Marble Head from the Met in 2025.
The remaining objects being returned in this ceremony are an exceptional group of 41 terracotta plaques that were looted from a 6th century B.C.E. Phrygian temple located in Düver, a site in south-central Türkiye. Their return represents an impressive collaboration. The ATU had previously seized and repatriated to Türkiye a plaque stolen from Düver in 2022. As a result of the ATU’s actions in that and in other investigations, Michael Taylor, the Chief Curator of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (VMFA), contacted the ATU after identifying potentially looted objects in VMFA’s collection. The continuing investigation proved these terracotta plaques had been looted, and VMFA immediately and voluntarily surrendered them to this Office for repatriation.
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In addition to the above repatriation ceremony, the ATU also recently returned 26 antiquities, valued at $75,000, to the people of Bangladesh. The objects were recovered pursuant to the criminal investigation into the antiquities trafficking networks run by the alleged trafficker Subhash Kapoor.
For almost 15 years, the District Attorney’s Antiquities Trafficking Unit (ATU), along with law-enforcement partners, have investigated Kapoor and his alleged co-conspirators for the alleged illegal looting, exportation, and sale of artifacts from numerous countries in South and Southeast Asia. The D.A.’s Office obtained an arrest warrant for Kapoor in 2012 and his extradition from India is pending. To date, the Kapoor investigation has led to the convictions of five individuals and the pending extradition of five others.
During District Attorney Bragg’s tenure, the ATU has recovered more than 2,450 antiquities stolen from 47 countries and valued at more than $260 million. Since its creation, the ATU has convicted 18 individuals of cultural property-related crimes, recovered more than 6,100 antiquities valued at $480 million, and has returned more than 5,780 of them so far to 32 countries.
The investigations were conducted by Chief of the Antiquities Trafficking Unit and Senior Trial Counsel Matthew Bogdanos, and Assistant District Attorneys Taylor Holland and James Edwards-Lebair; Investigative Analysts Grace Vieaux and Michael Chapin; District Attorney Investigator John Paul Labbat; and Special Agent Robert Mancene of Homeland Security Investigations. Assistant D.A.’s Corey Shoock, Jacqueline Studley, and Cecelia Chang worked on the federal litigation.
This Office recognizes and appreciates the investigative assistance of the officials, archaeologists, academics, and surviving villagers in Türkiye. We would like to especially thank Deputy Minister of Culture Gokhan Yazgi, Dr. Zeynep Boz (Head of the Combatting Illicit Trafficking Department), Burcu Özdemir, Egemen Batu Varol, and Utku Yurtsever at Türkiye’s Ministry of Culture and Tourism.
The District Attorney’s Office would also like to thank the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, including their Chief Curator Michael Taylor, the Jack and Mary Ann Frable Curator of Ancient Art Lisa Brody, and Chief Registrar Karen Daly for their proactive assistance in returning these antiquities to Türkiye and for their cooperation with our investigation.