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The Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA) filed a lawsuit against the Manhattan District Attorney‘s office on Thurday over the earlier seizure of a headless bronze statue, estimated to be worth $20 million. The museum stated in its lawsuit that it “does not question that the New York district attorney sometimes gets it right and returns true stolen items to foreign nations. Based on the evidence adduced thus far and the opinions of experts available to the museum, this is not one of those times.” The court filing says the CMA lawfully purchased the “Draped Male Figure” for $1.85 million from...

Horrifying footage shows the moment up to 50 looters ransacked a luxury accessories concession at a Los Angeles Nordstrom store. The footage shows men in dark hoodies and face masks ransacking the department store at Westfield Topanga Mall, even resorting to attacking security guards with bear spray. Videos have rapidly circulated on social media, depicting the mob shattering display cases and grabbing high-end designer accessories, some still affixed with electronic security tags.

SAN LEANDRO (CBS SF) - Police have made five arrests and recovered 59 vehicles, mostly high-priced Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcats, that were stolen during a night of looting following an outbreak of violence associated with anger over the death of George Floyd. As he watched looters ransack a Nike outlet across the street, the owner of the San Leandro Chrysler/Dodge dealership ordered his employees to secure the building and car lot the best they could and then get to a safer location. The looters storm into the dealership, smashing windows and gaining access to a lock box containing keys to...

Turkish occupation army and its gangs harvested the wheat and barley harvest belonging to the people of Afrin, after destroying part of it when it was in maturity stage. BASEL RASHID /AFRINAbout 70 harvesters have been sent to Afrin canton by Turkish occupation army and its gangs to harvest the wheat and Barley belonging to Afrin people, the source (Y, S) from Afrin said that the occupation harvested in front of the landowners.The source pointed out that the Turkish occupation will transfer the crop to Turkey after completion.The source pointed out that Turkey's gangs sent a week ago 70 harvesters...

A young Ukrainian has prompted widespread outrage after posing in make-up apparently looted from the crash site of Malaysian Airlines flight MH17. Ekaterina Parkhomenko, who describes herself as a ‘separatist’ from the eastern region of the country, posted images of herself on Instagram along with the claim that she was wearing make-up ‘from the field’ – hinting the products were taken from the same area where the bodies of victims of the plane crash lay. ‘Mascara from Amsterdam, or rather from the field. Well, I think you know what I mean,’ she reportedly wrote on her social media page, before...

A young Ukrainian has prompted widespread outrage after posing in make-up apparently looted from the crash site of Malaysian Airlines flight MH17. Ekaterina Parkhomenko, who describes herself as a ‘separatist’ from the eastern region of the country, posted images of herself on Instagram along with the claim that she was wearing make-up ‘from the field’ – hinting the products were taken from the same area where the bodies of victims of the plane crash lay. ‘Mascara from Amsterdam, or rather from the field. Well, I think you know what I mean,’ she reportedly wrote on her social media page, before...

Billionaire George Soros gave advice and direction on how President Obama should allocate so-called “stimulus” money in a series of regular private meetings and consultations with White House senior advisers even as Soros was making investments in areas affected by the stimulus program. It’s just one more revelation featured in the blockbuster new book that continues to rock Washington, Throw Them All Out, authored by Breitbart News editor Peter Schweizer. Mr. Soros met with Mr. Obama’s top economist on February 25, 2009 and twice more with senior officials in the Old Executive Office Building on March 24th and 25th as...

A Cairo teenager found a priceless statue of Pharaoh Akhenaton near a garbage bin after it was stolen from the Egyptian Museum during anti-regime protests, Egypt's antiquities chief said Thursday. The museum's world renowned collection was burgled and several artifacts went missing last month, including statues of King Tutankhamun and Pharaoh Akhenaton. A 16-year-old protester found the sculpture near a rubbish bin in Tahrir Square,

Despite the best efforts of the Egyptian army and a human shield, some of the artifacts inside the century-old Egyptian Museum were damaged during a brief wave of looting, authorities in Cairo say. And it sounds as if the damaged goods include treasures from the tomb of Tutankhamun, based on comments from the country's top archaeologist as well as a little sleuthing by archaeologists looking at video footage shot inside the museum. Margaret Maitland, an Egyptologist at Oxford University in England, matched up shots of the damage with pictures of artifacts from Tut's tomb and said that three gilded wooden...

Archaeological sites in south Iraq have not been looted, say experts Despite widely publicised fears of damage to ancient sites, a team of specialists found that eight of the most important have not been touched after 2003 Martin Bailey | 1.7.08 | Issue 193 The team’s Merlin helicopter flies over the stone temple at Warka An international team of archaeologists which made an unpublicised visit to southern Iraq last month found no evidence of recent looting—contrary to long-expressed claims about sustained illegal digging at major sites. The visit required the assistance of the British Army, which provided armed protection and...

Looters have struck at homes abandoned after the Buncefield oil depot explosion. Burglars have descended on at least three houses and stripped them of contents, such as televisions. Ironically, police ordered householders out of the homes after Sunday's explosion. They told them their homes would be safe in a police cordon. But shocked residents returned home to find their houses ruined - and their possessions gone. Household Aaron Muir told Sky News he was looted three times in three days. "We have been continually looted for the last three evenings," he said. "We have not been allowed to get access...

Attorneys for the J. Paul Getty Museum have determined that half the masterpieces in its antiquities collection were purchased from dealers now under investigation for allegedly selling artifacts looted from ruins in Italy. Italian authorities have identified dozens of objects in the Getty collection as looted, including ancient urns, vases and a 5-foot marble statue of Apollo. The Italians have Polaroid photographs seized from a dealer's warehouse in Switzerland that show Getty artifacts in an unrestored state, some encrusted with dirt — soon after they were dug from the ground, Italians officials say. In response to the Italian investigation, Getty...

LOS ANGELES (AP) Lawyers for the J. Paul Getty Museum have determined that half the masterpieces in its antiquities collection were bought from dealers suspected of selling artifacts embezzled from Italy, according to a published report Sunday. Getty officials knew as early as 1985 that several of their suppliers were selling artworks that probably had been looted, but the museum continued the acquisitions, according to hundreds of documents obtained by the Los Angeles Times. Italian authorities are demanding the return of 42 objects in the Getty collection they believe were stolen, including ancient urns, vases and a 5-foot marble statue...

Iraq's most cherished antiquity, the 5,000-year-old Warka Mask, was returned home on Tuesday after being looted during the anarchy that accompanied the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime in April. Captain Vance Kuhner said the mask was found after an intensive search by US troops and Iraqi police that led them to a farm just north of Baghdad where it was discovered buried under six inches of dirt. "A tip-off came to the museum, we were given an address that led us to a juvenile, then an older man and eventually the culprit. Then it took a week of negotiations," Kuhner...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Some of Iraq's more important ancient sites have been badly damaged by post-war looting and thousands of items are still missing from Baghdad's Iraq Museum, leading U.S. archeologists said on Wednesday. The archeologists, who carried out a survey for the National Geographic Society in Iraq, said while U.S. bombs had avoided hitting Iraq's treasures, many archeological gems had fallen victim to thieves and illegal digging. The U.S. military was doing its best to protect many important sites but the scientists said some places they visited in May were unguarded. "Several important sites have been badly looted and...

<p>Will the Bush administration ever win the global public relations battle over the war in Iraq? Short of finding an Iraqi laboratory in a cave deep underground — complete with scientists stirring vats of anthrax and the bubonic plague while humming "Hi, ho. Hi, ho. It's off to work we go" — it's hard to imagine. Critics of the war will likely continue to find ways of discrediting the war post facto. Some things never change.</p>

'Looted' treasures found in Baghdad By Andrew Clennell 08 June 2003 Almost all the items feared looted from the Iraqi National Museum in April have been found safe in a secret vault, the US announced yesterday. In a separate find, the world-famous treasures of Nimrud, one of the most important archaeological discoveries of the 20th century, which have not been on public display since before the first Gulf War, have also been located. They were found in good condition in a different vault, at Iraq's central bank. US occupation authorities said fewer than 50 major exhibition items from the National...

WASHINGTON - More than 700 artefacts and tens of thousands of ancient manuscripts that had been missing from the National Museum in Baghdad have been recovered by teams of investigators in Iraq, US officials said on Wednesday. Some of the missing works were stored in underground vaults before the United States-led invasion of the country. The US investigators located the vaults over the past week. They forced them open, revealing hundreds of artefacts that had apparently been stored there to protect them from being damaged in a US assault. The find included ancient jewellery, pottery and sarcophaguses, officials said. The...

Iraq's past was just a Saddamite plaything Mark Steyn National Post Tuesday, April 22, 2003 On our letters page last week, Douglas Anthony Cooper of Montreal chided me for my throwaway line about the anti-war crowd's sudden interest in property crime: "Steal the photocopier from Baghdad's Ministry of Genital Clamping and they're pining for the smack of firm government." "Some matters reside beyond the domain of comedy," writes Mr. Cooper. "The rape of the National Museum of Iraq and the torching of the National Library will be lamented by historians for centuries." He concludes, "A man of Mr. Steyn's sensibilities...

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — A cache of weapons, including automatic rifles, were stolen from a Greek military armory after thieves tunneled through a wall, officials said Saturday. Suspicion immediately fell on the embattled terrorist group November 17, but authorities also left open the possibility it was a heist by ordinary criminals. The theft on the island of Kos was discovered late Friday, but could have occurred anytime in the past 10 days, military authorities announced. It was not immediately clear whether the weapons were supposed to be under guard or in an unmonitored army storehouse on the island, near the...