Five eminent Parisian antiques specialists have been arrested on suspicion of selling looted Middle Eastern artefacts worth tens of millions of euros.
The experts are suspected of masking the origin of the items before selling them to clients, including some of the world’s leading museums, such as the Louvre’s outpost in Abu Dhabi and New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art.
The case underlines the scale of the pillaging of ancient sites in the Middle East, notably since the Arab Spring uprisings against the region’s dictatorial regimes almost a decade ago, and the subsequent wars and turmoil. It comes amid claims that Paris is an international centre for trade in illegal artefacts.
A legal source said that four people were arrested on Monday and one on
