LOOT: A Story of Crime and Redemption (2025)

[bunniefuu]

[birds and insects calling]

Pen Moni Makara:

To us Cambodians,

the descendants

of the Khmer civilization,

each of these artifacts

has special meaning.



Pen:

It's a symbol of protection.



Pen:

They are symbol of unity.



Pen:

It's a symbol of our soul.



Pen: Looting

and illicit trafficking

is why our nation was broken.



JP Labbat: These are bigger

than just, you know,

regular run-of-the-mill cases.

These artifacts,

once they're gone,

they're gone forever.

When I walk through

a museum today

and I look at those statues,

I just know that

there's so much history

that the people looking at

those statues don't wanna know.

Thanaren Than:

People lost their life.

People lost

their part of the body,

their family member,

try to get the sculpture out.

[men yelling]



Tess Davis:

In a very short time period,

they fell victim

to w*r profiteers.

They fell victim to greed.

JP: The networks behind them

were very advanced.

The smuggling routes

were complicated.

These are

a difficult investigation.



Tess: The illicit trade

in art and antiquities

is funding organized crime.

It's funding violent extremism.

Death threats,

calls in the morning

at three o'clock.

People have families.

They got kids.

You know, you don't

put that stuff at risk.





Voice Actor [Douglas]:

"My daughter

"and my bodybuilder chef

"talked to two priests,

independent of one another.

"Both of the priests indicated

that in some previous life

"I was Khmer

and that what I collect

"had once belonged to me."



[camera shutter clicking]



Malia Politzer:

You know, he would take people

like the Lindemanns,

who were these billionaires.

Martin Lerner, who, at the time,

was the curator

of The Metropolitan

Museum of Art,

to these remote jungle sites

and then having someone like

Latchford show them around

and have so much knowledge

about all of these items

must have been very exciting.



Angela Chiu: There was

a British stone conservator.

Simon Warrack is his name.

Malia: He had been working at

this beautiful site of Koh Ker,

which used to be

the capital of the Khmer Empire.



Malia: The statues there

are very, very distinct

and very different.

This is the site

of this beautiful piece

that they call

"the Duryodhana."

And then, he spotted

two pieces of stone

in the ground.

These blocks just had

the feet attached

and the body

was nowhere in sight.

This is pretty much

where they were

when... when we saw the feet

the first time.

And since then,

they've excavated this trench.



Angela: He happened

to be in a library,

and he saw a statue,

and he could see

by the position of the legs.

He said, "You know,

this kind of looks like

"it might fit

one of those pedestals."

And sure enough,

he kind of lined them

and he said, like,

"You know, I think this is...

"this is matching."



Angela:

A few years later,

Eric Bourdonneau,

a French researcher,

he was able to do

computer modeling

to show that that statue,

said to be owned

by a private collection,

matched the pedestal.



Angela:

Sotheby's put that statue

on the cover of its auction

of Southeast Asian art

for an estimated value

of two to three million dollars.

Cambodia then sent a letter

to Sotheby's saying,

"Don't sell it, because,

you know, the feet are found.

"This statue

belongs to Cambodia."

Within hours to spare,

this auction was stopped.

[birds calling]

Malia: US Authorities said,

"Look, like this is looted.

"We wanna return it

to Cambodia."

And Sotheby's said,

"No, no, no, no, no.

"We wanna sell it and we have

the right to sell it."

And so they, in the search

for the providence,

reached out to Emma Bunker,

who also was a very close friend

of Douglas Latchford's.

A lot of the E-mails

between Emma Bunker

and Douglas Latchford

were very illuminating,

and it was clear that he

definitely was the first owner

because they were then

trying to cover for him.

You know, I think that kind of

made him a person of interest.



I don't know where they imagined

that I own the piece,

but let me confirm to you first

that I did not own the piece.

I had nothing to do with it.



So, the Pandora Papers

was this cache

of nearly 12 million,

um, financial documents

from offshore secrecy havens

that showed how wealthy people,

and also sometimes criminals,

conceal their assets.



I ended up working on

the Latchford one,

and so I just was

basically going through

every single document

I could find.

Was able to see,

"Oh, this guy Latchford

is pretty interesting."



Malia:

"Where did the antiquities go

"and where did the money go?"

And we were trying to track

both of those things.



JP: Any time I would see a story

about law enforcement, or crime,

but in particular,

like the federal agents,

I just knew that that's

what I needed to be doing.

It was just like a calling,

and I'm like,

"That's what I'm gonna do."



JP: I hear rumblings

of an agent in our office

who's recovering

ancient artifacts,

so I sought him out,

and there's been

no looking back ever since.

It's been a wild ride.



JP: Whenever we start

an antiquities case,

we approach it from two aspects.

"Can we prove that

the piece is dirty?"

And then, "Can we prove that

someone committed a crime?"

"Did someone knowingly

smuggle something illicit?"

Two aspects,

the piece itself,

and then whether

someone broke the law.

I knew Latchford was dirty.

What I was trying

to figure out is "How involved?"

"How dirty was Latchford?"

[camera shutter clicking]

In 2016, I led Operation

Indochina Peninsula Plunder,

which was the investigation

into Douglas Latchford

and his network.

If you're going to allege

that a particular artifact

originates in a certain temple,

who's going to know that better

than people there on the ground?



[horn beeping]

My name's Bradley Gordon.

I'm officially appointed

to advise the ministry

on repatriations

of stolen antiquities.

Brad Gordon:

I walk into a museum,

I feel like, oh, you know,

"Do they have my picture behind,

you know, somewhere?"

And they, "Brad Gordon,

don't let this guy in."

The DOJ said to me,

"We're working on a case

involving Sotheby's.

You know, "You know about

Latchford, right?"

If you look at Cambodia,

and you're considering

the number of temples

that these guys raided,

the number of crime sites,

the number of statues,

it's an enormous amount.



Brad: You know, we were hired

to find the looting network,

track down villagers,

track down witnesses.

You know, in the beginning,

I didn't quite know where

Latchford fit into the picture.

[boat engine humming]

Brad:

And so, with Naren,

the two of us

went over the country,

interviewed many, many people.



People were terrified.

They were afraid.









You transform a piece of rock

into a piece of art

and then you also

embed spirituality,

sense of divinity,

in that piece of rock.







[birds calling]

[stream babbling]

Blue Tiger's extraordinary.

[laughs]

You know, he... he was

a trusted lieutenant

of Lion,

um, you know,

the head of the g*ng.

Brad: You know,

he has helped us tremendously,

given what was taken out

of Prasat Krachap.

As soon as I heard about the

statues that came out of there,

I knew that this was

an extremely significant temple,

and Blue Tiger's, um...

was there and participated in

the removal of the statues.

[g*n firing]

[men yelling]



So, Khmer Rouge

was a communist movement.

Um, they... they started

guerrilla warfare

from the early 60s.

You know, in the 60s,

President Nixon

and his secretary of state,

Kissinger, they bombed Cambodia

without telling congress.



Brad: More bombs

were dropped on Cambodia

than any time before

in mankind's history.



[bombs booming]

Brad: It definitely

destabilized the country.

There's no question about it.

[bombs booming]

Brad: The Khmer Rouge

were empowered by the bombing

because so many people

in the countryside

joined the Khmer Rouge.



Reporter:

April, 1975,

Khmer Rouge soldiers

are surging into Phnom Penh,

Cambodia's capital.

[flames crackling]

Reporter: Widespread panic

permeates the streets

as the new government

empties the city,

marching the population

into the countryside.





Angela: They basically

tore apart all the traditions

and institutions

of Cambodian life.

So, they tore apart families,

you know, schools,

uh, you know, the government,

Buddhism.

All these things

they... they tried to destroy.





Angela:

I think they've estimated

between one

and three million people died

from either being m*rder*d,

or from famine, or illness.

After the Khmer Rouge,

uh, fell, then, you know,

all these people who had been

separated from their villages,

from their families,

they didn't know

who was alive or who was dead.

You know,

they had no income, had to...

A desperate...

A desperate struggle

for survival.

There was all kinds of looting

of artifacts that took place.



Will Korner:

In conflict and crisis zones,

you quite often have

a breakdown of the social order.

You have opportunity

for criminals,

but also,

people we wouldn't

necessarily think of

as criminals,

to take advantage

of that situation,

maybe to feed their families.

JP: In 2016, Latchford, he's

just a blip on the radar screen.

So, my first question,

"What is Latchford about?"

Malia: Latchford was born

in the British Raj, in India,

and then went

to boarding school.

And then, when he was

about 20, he moved to Bangkok

and then he just fell in love

with Khmer culture.

Latchford had

a reputation for hanging out

with the museum glitterati,

the society people,

and he was a very high-profile

character around Bangkok.

Voice actor [Douglas]:

"I was at dinner one evening

"with Franois Duhau de Berenx,

who was an interior decorator.

"Franois showed me

a stone female torso

"and it immediately

had an effect on me

"that would change my life.

"I was smitten,

and could from then on

"think of nothing

but this wonderful torso."

Malia:

He fell in love with it

and he started

collecting Khmer antiquity

at this voracious speed.

Alan Parkhouse: One of my jobs

as a journalist in Bangkok

was to write a story

about Douglas Latchford,

and, uh, he showed me

through his place,

and every little nook

and cranny of that apartment

had some ancient artifact

sitting on it,

pretty much like

you'd see in a museum,

but these were sitting on

mantelpieces and shelves.

You could see he had a deep

affection for those pieces,

probably more

than he did for people.



Alan: The fortune teller

had told him that

he had once been Khmer

in a previous life,

and that's why he loved

all these Khmer statues.

Angela:

On the public side,

he tried to present himself

as this adventurous scholar.

So, this is kind of

drawing on those colonial motif

of a very heroic European man

who goes into the jungle

and discovers lost cities,

somebody who rescued

these Khmer artifacts

that had been lost

to the jungle.



Alan: Douglas owned

the entire apartment block

that he lived in.

He kept the whole floor

for himself

and there was

very heavy security there.

I remember

walking up to the window

of the security guard there and,

and there being a number

of other security guards

watching me

from inside the gate,

all bodybuilders.

Voice Actor [Douglas]: "One of

the things I do as a hobby

"is to help the Thai

Bodybuilding Association.

"I was elected as president

"for Asia earlier this year.

Luke Hunt: His love of

the Thai bodybuilding,

so we're told,

had more to do

with his lifestyle than, uh,

anything to do with, uh...

[sighs]

- -sport?

For the longest time,

he was just this, um,

kind of quirky, strange, like,

dinner conversation companion.

It took a long time

for them to realize

who exactly this man was.



JP: When I went and

interviewed some of the looters,

they talk about

how they actually met with

Douglas Latchford.

So, you know,

he has direct communication

and direct access

to the looters.

[birds calling]









JP:

We sat down with Blue Tiger,

showed the images of artifacts

that we were still hunting.

He was able to,

and another looter was able to,

identify some pieces that they

were directly responsible

for having taken

out of the country,

which was, which is,

you know, so rare.

The entire interview

was a... a "wow moment."





I was... I had my eyes wide open

and my jaw dropped the entire

time we were talking to them,

because who, what,

where, when, how, right?

That's what you need

to... to prove a case,

and, they...

We have that

from the mouth of... of...

for people involved.

The Skanda on Peacock statue,

which sold for $1.5 million,

I was able to

successfully track it down

and I got it

returned to Cambodia.







And then your hunt continues,

because there's so many of them.









He's selling statues

for one, 1.5 apiece.

We know Shiva and Skanda,

he tried to sell for 25 million.

Yeah, $25 million.

And he had another statue,

the Durga

that's going back to Vietnam,

he tried to sell

for $34 million.

[bird and bugs calling]

JP: Once I realized that

Latchford's a bigger player,

you know,

Latchford becomes his own board.

Who are his sources?

His sources are

the looters in Cambodia.

Who is he supplying?

Numerous entities.

They're going to supply museums.

They're going

to supply gallery owners.

They're going...

going to supply

private collectors.



JP:

Before you know it,

you have so many names

on the board.

It was simply a matter of

"Okay, what's next?"



Angela: You know,

among all the many people

who aided and abetted

Douglas Latchford,

Emma Bunker is probably

the most important person.



JP: Emma Bunker was

a major co-conspirator

of Douglas Latchford's.

Because Emma Bunker was attached

to the Denver Art Museum,

Latchford could introduce

pieces to a major museum

and have Emma Bunker vouch for

the integrity of the pieces

for the purpose of laundering

so that he could turn around

and resell it using the name

of the Denver Art Museum.

"Oh, this piece

was just... just shown

"at the Denver Art Museum."

So, no one would ever think that

there was a problem with it.



JP: Um, there's a number

of Latchford pieces

that have an Ian Donaldson

reference in the provenance.



Angela: Some of them

were supposedly written

after Ian Donaldson

had already died.

It's clearly letters that

were cooked up by Latchford.



Angela:

I mean, how cynical is that,

that you... you use

your dead friend's name

and, you know, imitate,

try to fake a signature

for your dead friend?

It's really... It's kind of...

It's really quite sick,

isn't it?

JP: There's a list

at Homeland Security,

and, on that list

is maybe a dozen museums

that had Latchford pieces.

And so, The Met was in New York.

I was based in New York.

That would be

the next one to go after.



JP: There are some

clear signs of looting

and it's something

that we look for

when we're poring over evidence.

A statue will get

broken into smaller parts,

makes it easier to ship.

Soil deposits are

a thing that we look for.

Anything that's

exposed to the elements,

you'll start to see

some corrosion.



We have security

on the front steps.



- Uh.

- Oh, no, I'm sorry.

- Southeast Asia.

- Oh, I'm sorry, Southeast Asia.

- Go there.

- Ah.



There's so many pieces here

that we have records on.

I don't even know

where to begin.



So, this headless

female figure, we, um,

had the opportunity to speak

with one of the looters, um,

in Cambodia,

and he admitted his role

in the removal of this piece

and transfer across the border

into Thailand.

And, on the condition report

for this piece,

it notes burial soil,

um, found on the piece.



For this bronze

Avalokitesvara, um,

we know that it arrived

heavily damaged

from The Met's own

internal reporting.

We have,

from Latchford's E-mail,

source photos,

um, source photos showing that

the piece was in the condition

in which it was found.

It should be a no-brainer

for this one to go back,

um, like so many others.



JP: Evidence has been

presented to The Met

that a number of the pieces

that they have were looted.

Straight up looted,

um, eyewitness testimony

from some of the looters

that were involved.



Brad: You know,

The Metropolitan

kept saying to me,

"Show me your evidence."

And we kept asking them

for their provenance documents.

They kept saying,

"Look at our website."

So, you know,

there's hardly anything there.

There are some records

on some pieces, where,

they have two conflicting

pieces of provenance

for the same piece.

In their records!

Like, "Here's where

we got the piece from."

And then,

a completely different story,

which contradicts that one.



To ignore the issue?

I think it's disrespectful.

Performing at The Met,

it was a form of

quiet or silent protest

to bring attention

to the issues

of looted antiquity.

Excuse me.

Okay, okay.

Okay, thank you.

JP: This is The Metropolitan

Museum of Art.

Um, I'm more disappointed

than I'm... than I'm angry.

It's The Met.

Like, "What are you doing?"



JP: The Met Gala tickets

are $75,000 each.

I know nothing else

of the Met Gala

except that Kim Kardashian

posed in front of

an Egyptian sarcophagus

made of gold,

and we seized it.

[interviewer laughing]

[laughs]



Luke: The old British museums

used to argue that,

"Well, if we didn't

save these?"

[inhales sharply]

You know, "Good Lord!"

"You know, they would have

just been lost."

Which, probably isn't true,

but it becomes a justification

for them basically

handling stolen goods.



Voice Actor [Douglas]:

"Admittedly,

"these things were moonlighted

"out of Cambodia

and wound up somewhere else,

"but had they not been, they

would likely have been shot up

"for target practice

by the Khmer Rouge."

My bicycle isn't

very well looked after by me

because I think I leave it

outside all the time,

but someone else always

brings their bicycle inside,

and therefore, it's in

much better condition.

That's not a reason for that

other person to own my bicycle.



Malia: Museums were a little bit

easier for us to investigate,

the museum items.

Private collectors, it's... it's

a whole different world.

They're basically a black box.



Malia: Brad just sent me

this very discreet picture.

"What do you know about this?"

And I said, "Oh, my gosh!

"All of these Khmer antiquities

"sitting in this

billionaire's living room."



Malia:

"Where did this come from?"

So, we started trying

to... to search.

We found the name of the street.

We found some details

about the couple.

But then we were able

to kind of triangulate,

based on other

real estate listings

that had other

similar pictures that matched,

that this was actually

the Lindemanns.



[camera shutter clicking]

JP: We have

The Metropolitan Museum of Art,

and now we have the Lindemanns.

In each of those,

the number of pieces they had

was far greater

than we thought going in.

Malia:

George Lindemann Senior

was the patriarch

of this family.

He and his wife Frayda, where

they have tons of properties.

They have tons of companies.

JP: Access to the looters puts

a spotlight on the Lindemanns

because the looters are

referencing specific pieces,

and we sat down with Blue Tiger,

showed the images.





So we started

trying to track down

any other photographs

we could find

of other properties,

including this 2021

Architectural Digest spread,

which we realized

was Sloan Lindemann's.

It was this beautiful courtyard

that had these pedestals on it

that were empty.

Combing through

Peter Marino's website,

who's the architect

who worked with the Lindemanns,

and they found

an identical photo,

except these pedestals

were not empty.

They had heads on them.

[laughs]

And they had these Khmer heads,

these really beautiful

Khmer heads.

We have the picture

with the heads

and then we have

the same beautiful courtyard

with no heads,

them actually photoshopped out.

To me, that's all

very suspicious.



JP: The Lindemanns

amassed a collection

valued around $35 million.



People who have that much money,

I think they want to be special.

They want to have

something special.

They want to have something

that nobody else has.



JP: They just weren't

as cooperative, but,

ultimately, it came down to

"You have a choice to make.

"We can go the easy way

or the hard way."





JP: Latchford certainly felt

like he was untouchable,

and so, you might have to wonder

why he thought so.

[camera shutter clicking]

[people chattering]

Anonymous Art Collector:

One-track minded.

He had very good friends

in high places.

He was protected.

And, uh, he wouldn't

tolerate any competition.

I got an E-mail

from Douglas saying

he'd like to catch up with me

at the National Museum

in Phnom Penh.

They gave him

Cambodian citizenship.

The deputy prime minister

at the time

conferred Cambodian

citizenship on Douglas

because he donated

so much to that museum.

Actor: "Deputy

Prime Minister Sok An came,

"made a speech,

and gave me a Khmer title,

"a royal title."

He came.

He'd lied to the Cambodians.

He flashed around

a lot of money.

I think he tricked them.

Luke: Well,

he's got his bodybuilders,

He's got his lawsuits.

He's got his lawyers.

He's got the Bunker family.

He had his addresses in London,

museums around the world.

He's got everything he wanted.

With the bodybuilders

came the bodyguards.

You know,

they... they had a... a reputation

that scared a lot of people.



Their imagination has gone wild.

They've seen too many

Indiana Jones films.



[camera shutter clicking]



JP: Nancy Wiener was huge

for the Latchford case.



JP: She was an art dealer

in Manhattan,

and she specialized in Asian and

Southeast Asian antiquities.

She was already being

looked at by Homeland Security.



JP:

In March of 2016,

her gallery's raided and

she's subsequently arrested.



JP: Having access

to Nancy's records

really is

the breakthrough moment

in the case against Latchford.

Blew the door open.



Actor: "I have just been offered

this Sri Lankan bronze head,

"height 18 centimetres."

"I've compared it

with one I have.

"They are looking for the body,

no luck so far.

"All they found last week

were two landmines!!

"What price would you be

interested to buy it at?

"Let me know as

I'll have to bargain for it."

"I've got one

fresh out of the ground."

"We're cleaning the dirt off."

"Hold on to your hat.

"Just been offered

this 56 centimetre Buddha.

"Just excavated."

"It's still

across the border, but...

[laughs]

"WOW."

JP:

This is smuggling 101.

The looter finds it,

sells it to Latchford.

Latchford's gonna turn around,

sell it in Manhattan

to... to an art dealer.

Um, for... for an investigator,

you don't often get

like this smoking g*n,

you know, kinda material.

We used the documentation

that we received from Nancy

to indict Latchford.



Conspiracy to commit wire fraud,

substantive wire fraud,

and smuggling,

conspiracy to commit an offense

against the United States,

entry of goods

by false statements,

and one count of

aggravated identity theft.



At the same time he's indicted,

doctors find him

to be incompetent,

and not long after that,

his health continued to decline

and, um, and he passed.



I would have liked for him

to have faced his day in court

and answer for the crimes

that he committed.



Douglas Lastchford's family

made an enormous

amount of money from this,

and they continue

to hold onto that money.

JP: Julia Latchford

is Douglas Latchford's daughter.

Julia signed an agreement

with Cambodia to turn over,

you know, hundreds of pieces

in the Latchford estate.

You have the opportunity

to come out smelling like roses

and unload

all this dirty material,

so I think for her

was a no-brainer.

We had to go through a process

of working with

the family representative,

so I went to London to drive

with him to the countryside.

So, I went with him

and we drove out to a pub.

I took a photo of the pub,

you know, when I walked up,

just...

..just thinking

if I disappeared,

somebody could check

my iPhone for that photo.

Um, and, uh... [laughs]

We went in to have lunch

and Julia was there,

and then she's like, "Okay,

you ready to see the gold?"

She opens the trunk of the car.

The trunk of the car.

And she's got

cardboard boxes in there,

four cardboard boxes,

and it's the Angkorian jewels.

It's the crowns,

and the bracelets,

and the armlets

from the Angkorian Empire.

But she went and just,

you know, opened everything,

and held it up, and showing me,

"Oh, this is an earring.

This is a bracelet."

Um, and I was deeply saddened

and mortified that the treasures

of this great ancient empire

were in the back trunk of a car

a couple hours

outside of London.

[camera shutter clicking]

[camera shutter clicking]

[camera shutter clicking]







Brad: People can still

do something good

even when they've done something

horrible in their life.

But, you know, when they did

that when they were kids,

they were in

a very difficult position.



Brad: I think it's

a beautiful story of redemption.



It was a surprise to me

that all of a sudden

The Met just announced that

"We're gonna return this batch

of their Cambodian antiquities."







Brad: The Met

have given back these 14,

by and large

because they know that they...

they are connected

to Latchford.

If they thought that

these were not stolen,

I think they would

never have given them back.



You know, they have done

something unprecedented,

giving back so many

to a country like Cambodia.

But there's no...

There's no admission.

There's no nothing.

I think it's wrong.



I believe that they know.

They know the background.

They know why

these are blood antiquities.

[thundering]

Brad:

It's raining so hard.

Is it a sign of joy?

Is it tears of joy?







[thundering]



[whirring]

[chattering]



JP: Having visited

the different temples

and seeing the empty spots,

and seeing everything

that was missing,

it just made me realize that

there's a lot of work to do,

and there are a lot of pieces

out there still.



[chains rattling]









[chanting Khmer]

[chanting Khmer]

[chanting Khmer]

[chanting Khmer]

[chanting Khmer]

[chanting Khmer]

[chanting Khmer]

[chanting Khmer]

[chanting Khmer]

[chanting Khmer]

[chanting Khmer]

[chanting Khmer]

[chanting Khmer]

[chanting Khmer]

[chanting Khmer]

[chanting Khmer]

[chanting Khmer]



Sophiline Cheam Shapiro:

You know, Cambodia,

we live through

w*r and genocide.

You know, we are not all that.



Sophiline:

It's hard to move on

if you focus on

the negative side of life.



Sophiline: There was time

of many century

that we had built

a great civilization.



Sophiline: They have gone,

but their work stay.



Sophiline: Past, present,

and future can connect.