British dealer tied to Khmer looting

For decades, Douglas Latchford was celebrated as a scholar and dealer of Khmer antiquities. Yet investigators now say he was at the centre of a vast looting network that funnelled treasures from Cambodia’s temples into Western museums and billionaire collections.

Latchford, who died in 2020, built his reputation by supplying ornate carvings and statues from the Khmer Empire. Many were missing limbs or still caked in dirt, but buyers rarely questioned their origins. When doubts arose, he produced paperwork—later alleged to be falsified—to reassure collectors.

Evidence shows much of his stock was pillaged from sites such as Angkor Wat and Koh Ker, smuggled across the Thai border and laundered onto the global art market. In 2019, US prosecutors indicted him on charges including wire fraud and smuggling, describing him as a “conduit” for stolen antiquities. He never faced trial due to ill health.

The fallout has been dramatic. Museums including New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Denver Art Museum and Australia’s National Gallery have returned dozens of items linked to him. Private collectors, too, have surrendered multimillion‑dollar collections. “The effective sale value of these pieces today would be zero,” said journalist Matthew Campbell, whose book The Man Who Stole the Gods details the case.

Latchford denied wrongdoing, insisting many artefacts were found by farmers or saved from destruction by the Khmer Rouge. But his daughter Julia has since repatriated more than 100 items and settled a US civil case forfeiting $12 million from his estate.

The scandal has exposed the fragility of Cambodia’s heritage during decades of war and upheaval. Looters such as former Khmer Rouge soldier Toek Tik confessed to stripping temples, later recognising pieces in Latchford’s catalogues. His testimony helped investigators trace stolen works back to their origins.

Hundreds of artefacts have now returned to Cambodia, though thousands more remain overseas. For Cambodians, these statues are not mere objects but living embodiments of the gods. As Culture Minister Phoeurng Sackona put it: “Our culture and our statues are not just wood and clay. They possess spirits, and they have senses.”

-2026-06-19