Thirty-six looted antiquities returned to Syria by New York prosecutors

Thirty-six antiquities worth more than $5 million were returned to the Syrian government at the initiative of the New York prosecutor's office, prosecutor Alvin Bragg announced in a statement Wednesday.

Among the pieces is a monumental stone funerary relief looted from the ancient site of Palmyra, when the Islamic State controlled antiquities trafficking in the country. This relief as well as 14 mosaics stolen from a Roman villa in Syria were allegedly smuggled by Georges Lotfi, a Lebanese pharmacist turned antiquities trafficker, who is the subject of an arrest warrant in New York and a red notice issued by Interpol in 2023.

Thirteen of the returned pieces were also seized from the prestigious Metropolitan Museum of Art (Met), where 402 antiquities worth nearly $99 million have been recovered since 2017. Four others belonged to one of the world's largest collectors of ancient art, Michael Steinhardt. Under the terms of a legal agreement in 2021, he had to return 180 antiques worth $70 million.

New York, hub of antiquities trafficking

A global hub of finance and the arts, with its museums and auction houses like Christie's and Sotheby's, New York has for decades been a hub for antiquities trafficking, and the state's justice system has been leading a restitution campaign since 2017.

The Manhattan Prosecutor's Office's International Antiquities Trafficking Unit says it has recovered "more than 6,400 cultural treasures, including rare books, works of art and antiques, worth $495 million" and has "returned more than 6,200 to 40 countries." She adds that she has convicted 18 people for crimes linked to this trafficking.