A renowned archeology expert and her husband were indicted in Paris on Friday in a vast investigation into the trafficking of antiques looted in countries in the Near and Middle East due to political unrest, AFP learned on Friday from consistent sources.
Christophe Kunicki, expert in Mediterranean archeology, and Richard Semper have been indicted for organized gang scams, criminal association for the preparation of crimes and offenses punishable by 10 years’ imprisonment, organized gang laundering and forgery and use of forgery, according to a judicial source and a source close to the file.
Presented to a liberty and detention judge, they were not imprisoned and were released under judicial supervision.
The two men were arrested and taken into police custody with three other suspects Monday and Tuesday during a resounding search in the hushed environment of the art market and Parisian antique dealers.
The three other suspects – the president of the house Pierre-Bergé & Associés, a former curator of the Louvre and a famous Parisian gallery owner from the left bank – were released without being presented to the investigating judge Jean-Michel Gentil, in charge of this investigation entrusted to the Central Office for the fight against trafficking in cultural goods (OCBC).
These two respected figures from the world of antiquities in the French capital, considered one of the world’s strongholds in the sector, are suspected of having “laundered” archaeological objects looted in several countries plagued by instability since the beginning of the 2010s and the emergence of the Arab Spring: Egypt mainly but also Libya, Yemen or Syria.
According to sources familiar with the matter, this traffic would have involved hundreds of pieces and would involve tens of millions of euros.
“The question is to know if these pieces left legally or not from the countries concerned”, according to one of these sources, “possibly in favor of the control of certain territories by such or such armed group”.
OCBC agents seek to verify whether these personalities having “storefront” were able to make up, with the help of intermediaries on site, the origin and history of these works to then legally resell them to individuals but also to major cultural institutions such as The Louvre Abu Dhabi or the “Met” in New York.
Specialist in Mediterranean archeology and member of the committee of the French Society of Egyptology, Christopher Kunicki had already seen his name and that of her husband linked to a sarcophagus case plundered in Egypt in 2011.
After having passed through Dubai, Germany, then Paris, this sarcophagus of the priest Nedjemankh had been sold to the Met in 2017 for 3.5 million euros (about 4 million dollars) by Mr. Kunicki.
The centerpiece of an exhibition at the Met bearing his name, it was finally solemnly returned to Egypt in 2019 after an investigation established that it had been stolen in the year of the uprising against President Hosni Mubarak.
Joined by AFP, the couple’s lawyers, Mes Emmanuel Marsigny and Cyril Gosset, did not wish to make statements.
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A renowned archeology expert and her husband were indicted in Paris on Friday in a vast investigation into the trafficking of antiques looted in countries in the Near and Middle East due to political unrest, AFP learned on Friday from consistent sources.
Christophe Kunicki, expert in Mediterranean archeology, and Richard Semper have been indicted for …
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