The frame of Patricia Kadgien's own Facebook photo of a still life owned by her SS officer father is a perfect match for the stolen painting by Abraham Mignon when overlaid onto the still life currently in the collection of the Museo de Arte Decorativo in Buenos Aires.

Update: The looted Goudstikker painting will be stored at the Holocaust Museum in Buenos Aires for now. Patricia Kadgien and her husband appeared in court, where their passports were confiscated and they were formally charged with possessing and concealing ‘stolen art in the context of genocide.’

Will this stolen World War II area painting tied to Friedrich Kadgien leave the pampa and go back where it belongs?

The Argentine Public Prosecutor's Office recently displayed the canvas from the Goudstikker collection during a press conference in the city of Mar del Plata.

577 Antiquities Seized: Minya looting case exposes ongoing threats to Egypt’s heritage. art-crime.blogspot.com/2025/09/577-...

Restitution Delayed, Injustice Prolonged: Kadgien family intends to drag the ownership claim of "Portrait of a Lady" stolen from Jacques Goudstikker into Argentine Civil Court. art-crime.blogspot.com/2025/09/rest...

Prodigious art dealer Inigo Philbrick’s love of money proved his downfall, but BBC Two’s The Great Art Fraud shows he remains unrepentant. www.telegraph.co.uk/tv/0/great-a...

Six Months for 590 Artefacts: The Case of U.S.-Egyptian Smuggler Ashraf Omar Eldarir. art-crime.blogspot.com/2025/08/six-...

Thread...

Swastikas, SOCMINT and Stolen Masterpieces: Inside the Hunt for Goudstikker’s Lost Art in Argentina. art-crime.blogspot.com/2025/08/swas...

Diamonds and Dispossessed Art: The Friedrich Gustav Kadgien connection to Goudstikker’s stolen artworks. art-crime.blogspot.com/2025/08/diam...

61 years ago today and Italy is still waiting. art-crime.blogspot.com/2025/08/61-y...

For @theopennotebook.bsky.social, I wrote about what to do when people don't call you back. To investigate secretive subjects, reporters can make creative use of public documents: lawsuits, corporate filings, government databases, social media, and much more. www.theopennotebook.com/2025/08/12/h...

We will carry on thanks to your guidance my friend.

The proposed US Art Market Integrity Act would subject art brokers to the same BSA reporting requirements as antiquities dealers, banks and other financial institutions, requiring art dealers and auction houses to retain records of expensive art transactions. www.icij.org/news/2025/08...

Anyone have a copy of this catalogue? If yes, can you DM me backchannel?

Avrich cites experts who suggest that half, or even more than half, of art offered on the secondary market is fake. I don't agree. However, the market's obfuscation and silence as accepted responses to questions concerning the authenticity of an artwork often involves a conspiracy of the willing.

Thread.

Spain’s culture ministry publishes a list of 5,000+ items plundered by the Franco regime – including paintings, sculptures, jewellery, furniture and religious ornaments – to help claimants reclaim their family property (almost a century after the outbreak of civil war). ceres.mcu.es/pages/Specia...

After two months of negotiation and a deal involving Godrej Industries Group, a Mumbai conglomerate, the consigned Piprahwa treasure and sarira, an ancient group of Buddhist relics worth an estimated $100m Hong Kong dollars (£9.7m), will now return to India. www.theartnewspaper.com/2025/07/31/s...

Great reporting and investigation on Wildlife trafficking in Laos. See also the GI-TOC report here: globalinitiative.net/wp-content/u...

Picasso's "Nature Morte au Crane de Taureau, Basquiat's Redman One & other high value artworks purchased with criminal proceeds connected to fugitive financier Low Taek Jho and the 1MDB scandal are up for auction via U.S. Marshals Service asset recovery division. www.txauction.com/auctions/308...

From Dubai to Zurich: Eugene Alexander faces justice in antiquities trafficking case art-crime.blogspot.com/2025/07/from...

Can Canadian-made robots root out art fraud? www.ctvnews.ca/sci-tech/art...

The bipartisan Art Market Integrity Act would require art dealers and auction houses to comply with anti-money-laundering (AML) and counter-terrorism financing regulations under the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) www.fetterman.senate.gov/fetterman-co...

#1 in ARCA's series of "This is not the type of provenance you want on an object you are considering for purchase". Looters and traffickers often used Polaroid photos as an informal way to document freshly looted artifacts before they entered the illicit art market.

Unearthing a Network: Seven arrested in Spain over the illegal sale of archaeological material. art-crime.blogspot.com/2025/07/unea...

One thing I’ve never thought about museum security CCTV footage memorialising. news.artnet.com/art-world/ho...

Coffin of Contention: The Recovery and Return of Pa-di-Hor-pa-khered’s Stolen Coffin. art-crime.blogspot.com/2025/07/coff...

In the heart of Rome, on the Quirinal Hill, a remarkable discovery was made in March 1885 during excavations near the ancient Baths of Constantine. Unearthed from the earth was a breathtaking bronze statue of a seated man. Sometimes living in Rome is magical.

These legal requirements are designed to prevent the illicit removal of historically or culturally significant objects, allowing authorities to assess each item’s provenance and value before it crosses borders. art-crime.blogspot.com/2025/07/thes...

The art scams in the primary contemporary art market often times go unnoticed. This is one of the more creative ones, in which it is alleged that California art dealer John Wolf may have posed as Lady Gaga. www.nytimes.com/2025/06/29/a...

Tomorrow, 28 June 2025, marks the official implementation date of Regulation (EU) 2019/880 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 17 April 2019 on the introduction and the import of cultural goods. art-crime.blogspot.com/2025/06/regu...

Reopening of the Museum of Stolen Art - New Finds" at the Octagonal Hall of the Terme di Diocleziano.

This afternoon at the ARCA Conference 2025, we continue with our second panel: “Gods on the Market: The Theft and Trafficking of Nepal’s Sacred Art” Our guest speaker🇳🇵Sanjay Adhikari presents: “Dear Art Curators: That’s Not ‘Art’, That’s Our Aji’s Beloved God.”

📢 DAY 2 of the ARCA Conference 2025 is underway! This morning's compelling panel examines: "From Courtrooms to Collections: Legal Challenges in Cultural Property Disputes" #ARCA2025 #ArtLaw #CulturalHeritageProtection Stay tuned as we continue the conversation at #ARCA2025

🗣️ Our second speaker of this morning’s first panel Yasmine Zahir (LLB, PCLL, Barrister-at-Law, Liberty Chambers, Hong Kong) presents to us: “The Controversies of the Koh-i-Noor Diamond: Should It Be Repatriated?”

I recently attempted @bellingcat.com's open-source challenges for the month of June, created in collaboration with @sauterne.bsky.social and others from @arca-artcrime.bsky.social. You can read about my take on the challenges and the walkthrough of the solutions here: medium.com/@shizahidaye...

Oghenochuko Ojiri was sentenced to two years and six months of imprisonment at the Old Bailey after he admitted eight counts of failing to make a disclosure during the course of selling artworks, contrary to section 21A of the UK Terrorism Act 2000. www.counterterrorism.police.uk/art-dealer-j...

Bubon fans: the Babesch organization kindly published the text of the talk I gave last month in Leiden about the looting and circulation of the statues, in which I also imagined how they might have been arranged and rearranged on the pedestals in antiquity. www.babesch.org/byvanck-lect...

If you're tired of Google's AI Overview extracting all value from the web while also telling people to eat glue or run with scissors, you can turn it off. There are several different methods depending on how. Here's one. arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024...

This week we’re showing you what investigating art crimes takes. Test your skills and learn some new ones with our fascinating challenges! My big thanks to @sauterne.bsky.social, @merelzoet.bsky.social and @galen.reich.me.uk

Where Art Meets Intelligence: New OSINT Puzzles Explore the Underworld of Art Crime. @arca-artcrime.bsky.social and @bellingcat.com have come up with some Art Crime related OSINT challenges. Can you solve them and level up? art-crime.blogspot.com/2025/06/wher...

Documentary here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0r4...

Kyiv Independent Investigation: Uncovering the secret Russian FSB operation to loot Ukraine's museums of nearly 33,000 items from the two museums — the largest such theft in Europe since World War II. kyivindependent.com/investigatio...

Once again, like with Camorra clansman Raffaele Imperiale, we see artwork from a museum theft used as collateral by a high ranking member of a transnational organised crime group involved in cocaine trafficking and violent crimes.

Oghenochuko "Ochuko" Ojiri, the London gallerist linked to the hezbollah-sanctioned Lebanese diamond dealer and contemporary art collector Nazem Said Ahmad, has pled guilty on all eight counts. art-crime.blogspot.com/2025/05/lond...

Habemus Papam! 💨 At the fourth ballot The Vatican's 133 cardinals have named the 267th pontiff. Pope Leo XIV www.youtube.com/watch?v=odPg...

An example of a painting stolen from a Museum (possibly) ending up in the possession of a drug trafficker, in this case, to negotiate the release of his girlfriend. www.crimesite.nl/flor-b-zou-g...