US returns two stolen bronze statues to Indonesia

The United States Attorney’s Office has announced the return of two stolen bronze statues to Indonesia, according to the US Embassy in Jakarta on Friday. “We will continue to work with Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) to stop unscrupulous individuals who seek to profit from historic works of art,” said US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Jay Clayton, in an embassy press release. He expressed gratitude to the collector for voluntarily surrendering the items safely, stating that it was a privilege to return the artworks to their homeland. “The Attorney’s Office is fully committed to eradicating the illicit trade in stolen and looted art and antiquities,” Clayton stressed. The antiquities officially returned to Indonesia during a repatriation ceremony at the Indonesian Consulate General in New York on Friday consist of two standing bronze statues of the Buddha Avalokiteshvara dating from the 8th century, measuring approximately 16 and 20 inches in height respectively. The statues were illegally taken from archaeological sites in Indonesia by a group of looters decades ago and subsequently sold to Latchford, who was based in Bangkok, Thailand. Latchford sold these historic objects, along with other Southeast Asian antiques, to a US collector between 2003 and 2007, concealing the fact that they were stolen. Around the end of 2021, the collector voluntarily surrendered a total of 34 antiquities from Cambodia and other Southeast Asian countries purchased from Latchford. Among these 34 items were the two bronze statues from Indonesia. The two returned statues were the subject of a civil forfeiture action filed in New York, under the case name United States v. A Late 12th Century Bayon-Style Sandstone Sculpture Depicting Eight-Armed Avalokiteshvara, et al., 22 Civ. 229 (JMF). The two statues were identified as ‘Sculpture-12’ and ‘Sculpture-27’ in the civil forfeiture complaint documents. Since 2012, the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, in collaboration with HSI, has successfully investigated, identified, and repatriated dozens of stolen and smuggled antiquities previously held by various individuals and institutions in the US. In 2019, Latchford was indicted in the Southern District of New York for orchestrating a years-long scheme to sell looted Southeast Asian antiquities on the international art market. The indictment was ultimately dismissed following his death.