| Hi, it's Matt. When you visit the Met in New York or the British Museum in London, it's tempting to wonder how all the ancient sculptures, friezes, and busts got there. Did someone get permission to remove each one from its original location for the benefit of a faraway institution? Or were they hacked away in the dead of night and smuggled out of their home countries and into the international art market? In recent years, big museums and private collectors have been forced to admit that it was often the latter—and that many of the treasures they display are, in any conventional sense of the term, stolen property. As I write in the new Bloomberg Businessweek Heist Issue, some of the most outrageous thefts occurred in poor, war-torn Cambodia, where temples from the ancient Khmer Empire—the civilization that produced Angkor Wat—were being systematically emptied of statues into the late 1990s. A large share of those pieces ended up in the hands of Douglas Latchford, a British bon vivant who established himself as the foremost dealer of Khmer art, supplying billionaire collectors and elite museums alike. Operating from an artifact-stuffed condo in the heart of Bangkok, Latchford was the central node in what heritage activists believe was one of the most significant art crimes in history. Latchford died in 2020, before he could face trial in the US for fraud and conspiracy. But justice, of a kind, may still be achieved. An international team of lawyers, archaeologists, and private eyes is trying to track down the treasures he sold and return them to Cambodia. It's a huge job. They estimate there are more than 2,000 likely looted objects across the globe, and locating them all could take decades. But they're making real progress, thanks in part to an unexpected break: They've convinced former looters to testify about what they stole. Click here to read the story or here to listen. —Matthew Campbell  Bloomberg Businessweek, July 4, 2022. Photo illustration by Chris Burnett and 731. Photos by Derry Moore. | 
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