AC’s Tess Davis Describes Douglas Latchford’s Crimes in Bloomberg Businessweek
July 26, 2022
Bad actors continue to exploit the global art market, putting our shared history and security at risk. For more than 40 years, Douglas Latchford was the world’s foremost dealer of Cambodian antiquities. Latchford spent decades trafficking the country’s art and antiquities, even allowing some objects to end up in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (Met) in New York.
The Antiquities Coalition is holding Latchford and the broader network that supported his crimes accountable through years of independent research and outside collaborations. In 2021, the Antiquities Coalition worked extensively alongside the Pandora Papers investigation in exposing Latchford on a global scale.
Tess Davis, Executive Director of the Antiquities Coalition, was mentioned in a recent Bloomberg article that explores Latchford’s crimes and the unique position that made him more culpable.
Davis has also detailed Latchford’s dark legacy and his lifelong tactics to pillage Cambodia during decades of civil war, foreign occupation, and genocide in an OpEd for The Diplomat. The Antiquities Coalition continues to call on the art world to return stolen items and urges museums like the Met to implement stronger protections against cultural racketeering.
Read the full article here.