The British Museum has announced that of the 1,500 items it estimates have been stolen, 626 have so far been recovered and another 100 have been found but have not yet been returned.
The FBI is investigating the circumstances under which hundreds of British Museum treasures were sold to American buyers.
As the BBC reports, the FBI has contributed to the return of 268 objects which the museum claims belong to it and which were sold to a collector in Washington.
The British Museum announced last year that ancient gems, jewelery and other items from its collection had been lost, stolen or destroyed.
One buyer, based in New Orleans, told the BBC that an FBI agent had emailed him asking for information about two pieces he had bought on eBay.
The FBI agent said he was assisting the Metropolitan Police in investigating the disappearance or theft of items from the museum.
The buyer stated that he no longer owns either piece of jewelry.
The British Museum says it has so far recovered 626 items out of the 1,500 it estimates were stolen or missing.
The British Museum says that of the 1,500 items it estimates have been stolen or are missing, 626 have so far been recovered and another 100 have been found but have not yet been returned.
The vast majority of items the museum believes were stolen were unaccounted for, and it is still in the process of finding ways to prove they came from its collection. In some cases, this involves collectors agreeing to donate items to the museum for staff to assess.
A senior curator, Peter Higgs, is accused by the British Museum of stealing, destroying, melting down and selling antiquities. He denies the allegations.
The museum said it believed Higgs took the £100,000 figure for the sale.
According to court documents in the museum’s civil case against him, he believes he has been stealing items for at least a decade, mostly selling unrecorded items from the museum’s warehouses.
The museum believes Heeks, who has since been fired, had sold items to at least 45 buyers on eBay.
Three buyers stated that the seller “sultan1966” presented himself as “Paul Higgins” or “Paul” on eBay or via email with them.
According to court documents, the museum says Higgs admitted that the sultan1966 account belonged to him.
New Orleans buyer Tony Birbiglia told the BBC he had bought two items from sultan1966.
The British Museum has not yet examined these objects, so it has not yet established whether they are from its collection.
One of these was an amethyst gem depicting Eros – the Roman god of love – riding a dolphin, which Birbilia bought for £42 in May 2016.
The other was an orange gemstone scarab beetle which he bought for £170. Birbilia sent his payment for the item in question to a PayPal account registered to Higgs’ personal email address.
Source :Skai
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