The video explores the illicit trade of Cambodian antiquities focusing on efforts to return looted artifacts back to their rightful homes. Bradley Gordon, an advisor to the Cambodian Ministry of Culture, is actively involved in tracing these artifacts which have ended up in various prestigious museums and private collections globally. Much of the blame falls on Douglas Latchford, the most prominent dealer accused of smuggling these valuable cultural treasures out of Cambodia during a tumultuous period in the country's history.

There is a significant shift occurring worldwide concerning the ownership and repatriation of cultural artifacts. The efforts to reclaim these antiquities have introduced complex challenges and negotiations involving international bodies, local governments, and collectors. The video highlights the ongoing struggle to ensure that stolen cultural heritage pieces are rightfully returned, creating an intricate web of legal and ethical issues to address.

Main takeaways from the video:

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Key Vocabularies and Common Phrases:

1. antiquities [ænˈtɪkwɪtiz] - (n.) - Objects from ancient times, especially buildings, artworks, or artifacts of significant historical or cultural importance. - Synonyms: (relics, artifacts, ancient objects)

Hi, I'm very good. My name is Bradley Gordon and I'm an advisor to the cambodian government, to the Ministry of Culture. I understand that back in 94 your company had an option of khmer antiquities and we just trying to figure out where those pieces ended up.

2. confiscating [ˈkɒn.fɪ.skeɪtɪŋ] - (v.) - Taking or seizing property with authority. - Synonyms: (seizing, commandeering, taking over)

So it's basically confiscating it. You probably don't want to use that word, but basically that's the word.

3. derisively [dɪˈraɪ.sɪv.li] - (adv.) - Expressing contempt or ridicule. - Synonyms: (mockingly, scornfully, disdainfully)

Douglas was known derisively among heritage activists as dynamite Doug.

4. artisanship [ˈɑː.təˌzən.ʃɪp] - (n.) - Skill in a particular craft or occupation. - Synonyms: (craftsmanship, handiwork, artistry)

They're incredibly beautiful. They're the product obviously of immense skill and a lot of really impressive artisanship.

5. bespoke [bɪˈspoʊk] - (adj.) - Custom-made or tailored. - Synonyms: (customized, tailored, personalized)

But in fact, Douglass was a guy who liked five star hotels and bespoke suits and nice restaurants

6. indicted [ɪnˈdaɪtɪd] - (v.) - Formally accused or charged with a serious crime. - Synonyms: (charged, accused, arraigned)

Douglas Latchford was indicted after allegedly trafficking stolen artifacts.

7. scrutinize [ˈskruː.tɪ.naɪz] - (v.) - To examine or inspect closely and thoroughly. - Synonyms: (examine, inspect, study)

We will be bringing that back home and discussing with the team back in Phnom Penh to analyze and closely scrutinize the details of these objects.

8. repatriation [ˌriːˌpæt.riˈeɪ.ʃən] - (n.) - The return of someone or something to their own country. - Synonyms: (return, restitution, restoration)

The us government has contacted private collectors and they've had a lot of incredible successes.

9. documentation [ˌdɒk.jʊˈmen.teɪ.ʃən] - (n.) - Material that provides official information or evidence. - Synonyms: (records, archives, paperwork)

We went into the Met and we took 3d images of every cambodian piece that's on display and fully documented what is here.

10. stonewalling [ˈstoʊnˌwɔː.lɪŋ] - (v.) - Deliberately delay or obstruct a process. - Synonyms: (stalling, obstructing, hindering)

Some of the museums are being very transparent and forthcoming and friendly about the situation and open to the discussion. Others are stonewalling.

Cambodia to Museums: We Want Our Statues Back

Hi, I'm very good. My name is Bradley Gordon and I'm an advisor to the cambodian government, to the Ministry of Culture. I understand that back in 94 your company had an option of khmer antiquities and we just trying to figure out where those pieces ended up. One of them is extremely important to Cambodia and it was looted from a temple. And we've collected a lot of testimony about it.

What we've been doing the last two weeks, three weeks, we've been going around the states and we've been visiting museums. We went to about twelve museums. We went to Asian Art Museum and Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and the Brooklyn Art Museum and so on. Okay. Okay. I mean, totally, I mean super appreciate that. That's fantastic. Okay, thank you very much. Okay. Okay, take care.

So it's basically confiscating it. You probably don't want to use that word, but basically that's the word. Right. Look, one of the dealers who probably was brought many of these to the auction, he died about two years ago. Douglas Lachry, I don't know if you've heard of him. The statue needs to go back home because the statue symbol as cambodian ancestors, as a cambodian gods, every time we go to temple, we expect to see the God over there, to see our ancestor over there.

But when we go to the temple, we didn't see anything over there. People chop it out and then cut the neck, cut the legs, and then move away from the temple and then to the broker and to the dealer and to collectors. This country was wracked by civil war for a 30 year period from the late sixties to the late nineties, millions died, millions were made refugees, and in that time this cultural heritage was stolen at huge scale.

The temples are some of the most spectacular ancient sites you can encounter. The one most people are familiar with is angor. I believe it's right to call it the largest religious complex in the world. It is absolutely enormous. These very large statues, they're four and 5ft tall, some of them. They're incredibly beautiful. They're the product obviously of immense skill and a lot of really impressive artisanship.

Most people, however, would only have seen them in museums because the statues are all gone and that's because they were all stolen. The Denver Art Museum is now returning four artifacts back to Cambodia after they were linked to a man who was indicted by prosecutors two years ago. Douglas Latchford was indicted after allegedly trafficking stolen artifacts.

Douglas Latchford was a british businessman, lived really his entire adult life in Bangkok, who made a lot of money in pharmaceuticals and real estate, and was also the world's most prominent and arguably most prolific dealer of cambodian statues. Douglas was known derisively among heritage activists as dynamite Doug. And that was for the rumored means by which some of his objects were extracted from temples.

Douglass used this term for himself, describing himself as an adventurer scholar, which is obviously calculated to create a kind of Indiana Jones vibe that was not really him. But in fact, Douglass was a guy who liked five star hotels and bespoke suits and nice restaurants. This is not someone who was ever trooping around the jungle in search of lost treasures.

He got involved with something called the Thai Bodybuilding and Physique Sports association, which is the official national organization for bodybuilders in Thailand. And Douglas, who by this point was quite wealthy, bankrolled the association. He ultimately served as the president. He was a businessman, and he did most of his business from the comfort of his home in Bangkok.

Items that in one way or another passed through Lachford's hands ended up in the collections of some very wealthy people, ended up in the Metropolitan Museum in New York, in the Norton Simon in Pasadena, California, in the British Museum, the National Gallery of Australia. We don't actually know how many pieces he bought and sold, certainly in the hundreds, perhaps in the thousands.

We went into the Met and we took 3d images of every cambodian piece that's on display and fully documented what is here. We will be bringing that back home and discussing with the team back in Phnom Penh to analyze and closely scrutinize the details of these objects.

There's been a big evolution in thinking around cultural heritage and who it belongs to. In 1970, there was a convention that was put together through UNESCO, which is the un body for cultural heritage, that laid down some ground rules for how statues, you know, paintings, cultural objects, essentially, can be removed from their country of origin. The basic principle is post 1970. You are supposed to show that you have permission from the government of the country where an object originated to remove it.

There's no indication that Lachford had permission. The cambodian government certainly never granted permission for the removal of any of these objects. Today, I am proud to announce that we are returning 30 ancient works of art to the kingdom of Cambodia. Organized looting networks, including looters affiliated with the Khmer Rouge, sent these statues to a well known antiquities dealer, Douglas Latchford.

The looters would go get what they could find, and they would bring it to the brokers, who would get it into Thailand, and then ultimately, it would find its way to Douglas. So there is a large team of researchers centered on an american lawyer named Bradley Gordon, who lives in Cambodia, who are now trying to track down objects that were looted from Cambodia.

This team are interviewing these looters in great detail, going through, step by step, everything they remember, they will have cambodian government archaeologists dig up a temple and look for fragments. Look for broken feet or pieces of pedestals. You can 3d match these fragments to what is known to be in museum collections or the collections of private collectors.

If that works, you've found a crime scene. And that, as you can imagine, provides a basis to demand that these pieces be given back because. Because they're stolen property. When I started, I was hired by the US Department of Justice. I went out with Cambodians and we went around the countryside, and we met maybe 100, 200 witnesses, and we spoke to them.

And we found one gentleman in particular. We call him the lion. He moved up to become the head of a major gang, and he had more than 300, 400 people working for him across the country. And he told me that the one thing that kept him going was the demand that people in Bangkok, and one person in particular named Sia Ford, who was Latchford, was eager to get khmer antiquities.

When I met the lion, I brought one of the books that Latchford had published. And he got very excited when he saw the front cover. He saw Shiva and Skanda, a father and child statue, extremely important statue. And he was excited and saying to his wife, I know this statue. I know this statue. And later he showed me the spot where he found it. And we dug and we found the arm and we found the ear.

I think, Luther, now they want to help us because they feel more likely, they feel guilty. They feel so sad when everything just gone. They know also that those antiquities gone from Cambodia and it result from their activity, from their mistake. Also today I'm at the stone laboratory of the National Museum in Phnom Penhouse, and behind me is Shiva with a statue of Skanda.

We brought one of Lyons lieutenants to this very room a couple months ago, and he saw Sivan Skanda and he touched it, and he said, I believe you now. I understand what you're doing, and I see the results. And they continue to help us. From about 2016, when a very prominent New York antiquities dealer named Nancy, we was charged criminally with possession of stolen goods, Douglas knew that he was in the crosshairs, and he began working to try and head it off through these negotiations with the cambodian government.

And his ask of the cambodian government was that in exchange for me giving back my collection, I want you to ask the Americans not to prosecute. One day a couple years ago, my phone rang and I answered the phone and it was Douglas. He had instructions not to talk to me at that stage. So he called me and he said, I'm back from the dead.

And he started laughing and we started talking. He was an extremely charming man and a very good salesman, and there's no question about that. And I said to him, look, Douglas, we need your collection to come home. And if you truly love the cambodian people, this would be the right thing to do. And he laughed and he said, yes, I would like to give back to Cambodia.

I now have access to a lot of his correspondence and I see that, sadly, he was actually selling his collection. He was trying to get rid of it and putting it in other people's hands. You know, he was extremely busy trying to move his collection right up until the end. It's kind of sad, you know, for us as a Cambodian who have a very long, very great history, but now we seem to lose it.

We become someone who have nothing. The antiquity is important because they are not the statue. They are not the object. They are belong to our ancestor. So that is important that the statue, that the antiquity came back, our ancestor came back to Earth. And then we can continue our practice, our worship.

In many ways, our work is just getting started. We're tracking more than 100 museums with more than 2000 objects. Now, there are some major collections out there, so we're taking a strong line. When we're talking to museums and we're talking to private collectors, we're saying, prove to us you have a right to have it. It's stolen. We know it's stolen.

Some of the museums are being very transparent and forthcoming and friendly about the situation and open to the discussion. Others are stonewalling. They don't want to talk to us. The us government has contacted private collectors and they've had a lot of incredible successes. You know, we had Jim Clark returning a collection that he paid more than $35 million for.

Returning this artifact is like returning our price, returning our soul back to our peoples. It's been very frustrating because we're doing all this work here in Cambodia in a country that is still developing without full cooperation from extremely sophisticated and wealthy institutions and without the help of private collectors. Many of them are billionaires.

These individuals, 100 of them. I know their names. I have their email addresses. They're out there. They are completely silent. None of them are coming forward and providing us information. If we had all that information, I think we could prove to almost every museum in the world most of their collection is stolen. It needs to come home.

So while I walk into my museum and I saw this female statue, cocky style. So I feel very, very proud. Feeling, like miss each other, like my heart, like show up. I love this statue so much. When I see, I never think about. I have chance to see this statue. Yes. Very upset if I don't have chance to visit here. I don't know where this statue gone.

And also cambodian young generation, new generation, no chance to see the real statue in our country.

Cambodia, Cultural Heritage, Douglas Latchford, Economics, Education, Politics, Bloomberg Originals