Kidnapping the Gods

ALEX MANN: Hey, Alex Mann here with Background Briefing.

This episode -- we're going to be doing something slightly different.

We're kicking off a big two-part investigation that we're calling Kidnapping the Gods.

For around five months now one of our reporters has been looking into how precious artefacts from Cambodia and Thailand made their way into prominent collections here in Australia, and around the world.

And what he's found will send a chill down the spine of curators and private collectors.

For this series, I'm going to hand over to our reporter who's been on the trail... Mario Christodoulou.

MARIO CHRISTODOULOU: So I'm here at the National Gallery in Canberra. I'm standing in front of the glass sliding doors about to go in. Inside this building is what I reckon to be some of the most beautiful, some of the oldest South-East Asian artworks in Australia.
A lot of them are hundreds of years old. Some of them are thousands of years old. But there's something a bit off about the sculptures, the Southeast Asian art sculptures that you see in galleries around Australia. They're never quite complete. It's always a hand or a head or a torso or a statue that's been broken at the ankles. And there are some legitimate reasons why this might be the case. But the more I look into it I reckon it's because at least some of them are stolen. Khmer works, Thai works. A lot of them came out here in the sixties and seventies. How they got here is still a bit of a mystery. Not even the museums, the ones who bought the pieces, actually know where they came from and how they got into the country. And that's what this story's about.

It's a mystery I'm determined to solve.

Earlier this year the National Gallery returned a set of 800 year old sculptures that were suspected of being stolen from India.

I reckon this is the tip of the iceberg and there are problems with the South East Asian collection that the gallery doesn't even know about yet.

And that those problems can be traced back to dodgy art dealers, whose role in supplying Australia's most high profile cultural institutions with treasured antiquities has never been fully revealed .

I'm starting my mission close to home. In fact, my first stop is just gone a couple of floors down from my office, at the ABC's reference library

CATHY BEALE: Oh,hello
MARIO CHRISTODOULOU: Hi.
CATHY BEALE: How are you?
MARIO CHRISTODOULOU: I'm not too bad.

This is Cathy Beale, one of the ABC's librarians. I always like working with her because she has a real knack for unearthing little gems.

But what I hadn't realised until we got chatting is that she's actually the perfect person to help me with this mission.

CATHY BEALE: I must say, when you were asking for some Khmer art books, my antenna went up. Many, many years decades ago, late 80s, early 90s, I did an Asian arts degree at the ANU and part of my course I was very, very interested in the art and architecture of Southeast Asia. I never really took it further. Um...obviously, eventually becoming a librarian, so not a curator, but I've always had a... at least a casual interest in the art of the area, particularly Cambodia.

MARIO CHRISTODOULOU: Cathy's really invested in this idea of tracing where the Khmer works in Australia came from, and I'm happy to have a collaborator.

MARIO CHRISTODOULOU: What do you think that we'll find once we start delving into this?

CATHY BEALE: I almost don't want to know because I think it could be quite upsetting, really. I mean, Cambodia has just had such a traumatic history. I would be quite upset to think that Australia might be implicated in some ways with almost taking advantage of that, whether knowingly or unknowingly using that country's misfortune to, you know, use decorative arts not knowing their value

MARIO CHRISTODOULOU: We have to start somewhere.

So we start looking at the Khmer works at the National Gallery of Australia.

They have an enviable collection of exquisite statues: serene seated buddhas carved from stone, life-like temple guardians, coiled multi-headed snakes called Nagas.

The statues are enchanting.

On its website the museum mentions where the works were originally bought from. And one name keeps coming up again and again and again.

A commercial gallery in the heart of Sydney - The David Jones Art Gallery.

Now, you've probably heard of David Jones the retail outlet, and if you've spent time in Sydney, you may have wandered into their flagship Elizabeth Street store.

But what you might not know is that during the 60s and 70s, they had a fine art gallery as well, inside the department store.

Their exhibitions were exclusive -invitation only events.

It wasn't just a place to buy art, this beautiful gallery space was an institution - a place to see the elite and be seen by them.

It brought the artistic sensibilities of the European upper crust to downtown Sydney - with sculptures by Rodin, Emilio Greco, Jacob Epstein.

But from what I've found out, it seems like it was also one of the biggest funnels of Khmer artefacts from Cambodia.

FRANK ELGAR: Well you know, the elite is always a small group of people

MARIO CHRISTODOULOU: I've managed to track down a member of that social set who was often seen at the gallery.

FRANK ELGAR: it was a special space up on the seventh floor, and David Jones in those days was really the great social centre, you know, so it was the place to shop, it was the sort of place where ladies lunch and everyone would have hats and gloves.

MARIO CHRISTODOULOU: Back in the day, Frank Elgar was a bit of an influencer with the ability to get himself on the guest list of some of the most exclusive Sydney events.

He's 79 now, looking sharp still, with a navy blue jacket and a neatly folded handkerchief peaking over the top of his breast pocket.

FRANK ELGAR: I'm very socially gregarious. I think the French word for the sort of person I am is..uh.. a flaneur.

MARIO CHRISTODOULOU: Frank's insisted on bringing me to a cafe in the cavernous lobby of an office building, a short walk away from where the David Jones gallery was.

As he carefully sips his coffee, he tells me that during the 70s, some of the most sought after works were Khmer artefacts.

FRANK ELGAR: Cambodia at that stage had an enormous quantity of artefacts which were coming onto the market in one way or another. Great temples like Angkor Wat in Cambodia amazing places, and huge, you know, great works.

MARIO CHRISTODOULOU: Cambodia was considered this exotic place.

Listening to Frank, sounds like it's jumped off the page of a Rudyard Kipling novel - thick unexplored jungles, wild animals, mysterious ancient cultures, you get the picture.

FRANK ELGAR: people had no idea of ...hard to have even known where Cambodia was. Sounded like a fabulous place, it's like Xanadu. It was kind of, you know, solar topees and safari suits and, you know, machetes and cutting through the jungle.

MARIO CHRISTODOULOU: Few back in Sydney asked how the Buddha heads on display had come to be detached from their bodies, or how the feet of the Vishnus had come to be snapped off at the ankles.

According to Frank, back in the 60s and 70s, no one would have been worried about whether these were stolen.

And neither - at the time - was he really. For Frank - works weren't stolen - they were salvaged.

FRANK ELGAR: what people don't realise that is if these things had not been salvaged. They would have all been destroyed and we wouldn't have them at all. I mean, these things were offered for sale by reputable people. At that stage the main concern might have been with the things were forgeries, rather than the fact that they were real and had been stolen.

MARIO CHRISTODOULOU: But there was one person who must have known where they came from.

He was the director of the gallery - a man Frank describes as an almost mythical figure.

His name was Robert Haines.

FRANK ELGAR: So he was a very charming and attractive person. He was like a sacred animal in a way. He had these wonderful qualities. So there was only one Robert Haines. I mean, he was a total original.

MARIO CHRISTODOULOU: If you happened to wander into the David Jones' Gallery back then you may have spotted Robert Haines hunched over his desk typing on his typewriter.

He cut a sharp handsome figure he's been described as tall - almost frail-looking but in fact very fit ... at school he was a champion runner.

His skin was polished and tanned - an elegant man, with an unerring eye.

One friend once told the newspapers that "you had to watch his fingers [because] he was always straightening paintings and repositioning objects."

Haines was a titan of the arts, friendly with the biggest collectors of his day.

But Haines had a secret, that as far as I can tell -- he never shared.

Where was he getting the works?

Where was Robert Haines sourcing the Khmer artefacts from?

FRANK ELGAR: Well, this is a bit of a mystery because I mean, obviously, if you're in business as a dealer you don't tell people where you get things

MARIO CHRISTODOULOU: Robert Haines died in 2005.

And I wonder whether he took the identity of his dealers to the grave.

It seems like David Jones Gallery was one of the major funnels for Khmer art coming into Australia.

But I need to know who Robert Haines was dealing with to find out exactly where all these artefacts came from.

Back at the ABC Library, Cathy has found a promising lead...it turns out that the NSW Art Gallery now has possession of more than a hundred boxes of archive files from inside the David Jones Gallery.

Surely amongst all those papers, there's some mention of where all that Khmer art came from.

But as soon as our hopes are raised, they're dashed.

Cathy tells me that the NSW Art Gallery's library is being renovated and the boxes aren't available.

CATHY BEALE: the librarian got back to me personally that there was the standard email, but she also sent me a private email saying, Look, I'm really, really sorry, but they're actually completely boxed up in storage off site. There's just no access at all.

MARIO CHRISTODOULOU: My heart sinks. It's frustrating.

I fire off an email begging and pleading for access and try to move on.

While I'm researching this story I have to keep reminding myself that at the same time that Sydney's elite were clinking champagne glasses in front of rare Cambodian artefacts...back in Cambodia the country was in the midst of one of the darkest chapters in its long history.

In the mid 60s, in the country's North East a group of young Communist fighters were beginning to wage a bloody campaign for control of the country.

ARCHIVE: This is a front line on the battlefield northwest of Phnom Penh. The camp here is manned by men of the 7th Division, who have borne the brunt of some of the heaviest fighting since the present offensive started on New Year's Day.

MARIO CHRISTODOULOU: The Khmer Rouge overthrew the government in 1975 after a bloody conquest that saw hundreds of thousands flee the country.

ARCHIVE: The Cambodian government army has been relying heavily on air support. Tiny T-28 fighter bombers have been flying long hours, bombarding enemy positions ahead of government troops.

MARIO CHRISTODOULOU: Soon after the Government overthrow, Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot re-named the country Kampuchea and herded the population into farming slave camps.

These became known as "the Killing Fields.

Many died of starvation and sickness.

ARCHIVE: We worked so hard. We have no pay. We work seven days a week.

The Khmer Rouge targeted so-called intellectuals. Just wearing a pair of glasses couldn get you shot. Any one resisting their authority was in the firing line.

Witnesses remember Khmer Rouge soldiers snatching up victims after dark.

ARCHIVE: At night when the the night come, they come to grab the the family or the person who they want to kill. And they often kill just behind the village and we still can hear the voice. I was very scared. My mother? I asked my mother, Did you hear mother

MARIO CHRISTODOULOU: Some estimate a third of the country's population died in less than five years.

Poverty and desperation meant there was no shortage of people willing to snatch statues themselves, or to become foot soldiers in highly organised looting gangs.

The trade in stolen antiquities was booming. It was a smuggler's paradise.

And now, Cambodians want their cultural heritage back.

MARIO CHRISTODOULOU: Sopheap are you recording on your phone. Are you recording at your end on your phone?
SOPHEAP MEAS: Yes, yes., I'm now recording

MARIO CHRISTODOULOU: Sopheap Meas works for the Cambodian Ministry of Culture where her job is to investigate and help trace ancient Khmer artefacts stolen from her country.

And that means traipsing through the jungle and tracking down former looters.

SOPHEAP MEAS: we met people who would actually involve themselves in the looting activity.

MARIO CHRISTODOULOU: She tells me, in Cambodia, some of these artefacts aren't just stone sculptures, they're living gods. They're considered ancestors.

So when they are removed and whisked away, it's like losing a member of the family.

SOPHEAP MEAS: It's so painful because it seemed like they lost their ancestor. They lost their ancestral spirit. So when they go to temple, they just say, I don't want to go there because the God is not there and the God is just living outside of the country, and they just mention a specific country that they know related to the looting activity, you know.

MARIO CHRISTODOULOU: The local people who took part in the looting are starting to come forward to talk to her. Some feel that they're cursed, and by helping to bring the old gods back home, they are lifting old curses and balancing their cosmic karma.

Sopeap has to listen to story after story about these living sculptures having their heads hacked off or dynamited from rock surfaces.

SOPHEAP MEAS: I...I cry, but I just I just don't want to so people, but my my, my my hand was shaking some a lot. And then. Sometime I just feel a little bit sad to hear such a thing, it's affects me a lot. I remember that I almost like fall down, you know. I feel like, wow, how much those artefacts were destroyed, removed, transfer it's so painful to see, to hear that object, to hear that what happened to those object, you know?

JASON FELCH: there is an intractable link between illicit antiquities and conflicts.

MARIO CHRISTODOULOU: This is Jason Felch.

He was an investigative reporter with the LA Times, and later ran a website helping to track down looted artefacts across the world.

JASON FELCH: that network of smugglers and looters and traffickers had been taking out some of the best ancient art out of Southeast Asia and smuggling it out and packaging it up for auction houses and museums and private collectors to acquire here in the West. They would identify these sites, excavate them, bring in big, heavy equipment to kind of lift these massive sculptures out of the ground and out of these ruins, these crumbling temples and ... uh...and basically smuggled it across the border into Thailand.

MARIO CHRISTODOULOU: Now, when you think of art smuggling, you might think small scale - digging up a ruin, stuffing it in your backpack and trying to sneak it across the border.

That sort of thing was going on but that's a small part of the picture. What we're talking about was organised theft on a vast scale.

Soldiers on all sides profited from the trade.

In one case from the early 70s, soldiers closed off an entire temple complex, raided it during the night and carried off their spoils by helicopter.

But the smugglers had a problem.

You see, they needed a way to get their stolen antiques into the art market, and for this they needed someone who could clean the statues - not just in the literal sense - but someone who could sell them to respectable galleries and collectors.

JASON FELCH: I've been looking at antiquities trafficking networks around the globe for the last 15 years, and in each of these networks, there is a figure who has a public facing appearance to the Western art markets where they can look like a legitimate dealer or collector they're acceptable in kind of a good society, if you will. I put that in quotes, but they are also someone who has deep enough ties to the black market that they can look downstream and have contacts with the looters, with the smugglers, with the forgers who create the false documents and really master both sides of the market. The dark side of the market and also the light side of the market.

MARIO CHRISTODOULOU: There's even a name for this person - in the study of art smuggling they're called "the Janus figure"

Like the roman god of the same name, they wear two faces.

On one side, the legitimate face of the art dealer. On the other, the criminal, who buys from smugglers.

They transform looted antiquities into art commodities.

Objects go in dirty and come out clean.

It makes me think of those objects for sale at the David Jones Art Gallery.

The gallery's director Robert Haines was a respectable art dealer.

But I just wonder, was he - perhaps without knowing it - buying from this kind of Janus figure.

I had to find the identity of his dealer, so I hit the phones.

No one seemed to be able to help me.

But then, I read Robert Haines obituary following his death in 2005. And it happens to mention that he had a partner.

And that he was significantly younger than Haines - so he might be alive.

After a lot of calling around, I find a number for him - it's got a French area code.

I first send a text, then give it a call.

Is that Patrice?
PATRICE RABAUTE: Yes, Mario. How are you?

MARIO CHRISTODOULOU: This is Patrice Rabaute.

Turns out Patrice and Haines were together for 32 years.

They met by chance at a restaurant.

PATRICE RABAUTE: I was a waiter in a French restaurant. He said, Well, you know, with what you know, we're looking for a junior at the moment, why don't you come apply and uh... and see if you can get the job? And of course, I got it.

MARIO CHRISTODOULOU: He tells me the David Jones Gallery wasn't like other art shops.

It wasn't just a place to buy art, it was a place to admire it.

PATRICE RABAUTE: In fact It was a gallery which looked like more of a museum than the commercial gallery. It was just like a museum for people. I mean, that was also Robert's aim, which was to encourage people to go and look at art, just to look at it.

MARIO CHRISTODOULOU: It's obvious Patrice really admired Robert Haines.

And I can't blame him. When you look at Robert Haines's career and how he helped to open people's eyes not only to international art - like the Khmer Sculptures - but also Australian works, it's hard not to admire the man.

But during those days when attitudes were different could he have been inadvertently dealing with a Janus figure - someone who may have seemed legitimate to him, but was actually also dealing with smugglers.

As our conversation continues, I start edging towards the key question.

Where did Haines get the Khmer works?

Turns out, not only did Patrice know where the works came from - he WENT WITH Haines to buy the items directly from a dealer.

This mysterious dealer was in Bangkok.

And the dealer had a remarkable, exclusive shop.

PATRICE RABAUTE: And I remember his shop, in fact, from the... it was a proper shop. I mean, you know, shop in the US, it was not anything open to the public yet to ring a bell. Already in those days and you had perhaps just one piece in the window, it was not meant for anybody. It was really for people who made an appointment who knew what they were looking at. And this is when I accompanied, I went with Robert. That's the way it was. You know, you ring a bell. You had perhaps one Khmer head in the window. And then inside it was all hush hush. You know, it was almost like a church. He knew Robert's taste. And so he would put aside things he... he thought Robert might be interested in the following year.

MARIO CHRISTODOULOU: He tells me the dealer was a Chinese man called Peng Seng.

PATRICE RABAUTE: through Peng Seng, most of the pieces you see came from this gallery he bought...uh... I know that all the pieces I've seen of pieces you told me there they were in that museum were all bought from Peng Seng in Thailand, in Bangkok.

MARIO CHRISTODOULOU: Was there ever any concerns that some of the antiques that were coming across the border from Cambodia into Thailand and potentially to Peng Seng saying that they may have been looted from or stolen from the temples, was that ever a concern?
PATRICE RABAUTE: I don't think there was ever... in those very, very days that you're describing, there never was a proper concern of using the word looting. I think probably what Robert was thinking that the pieces themselves were being preserved by being taken out of the country, except that later on it is true. And by then he was quite old and living with me in France, and it was already all over the papers. I mean, the word looting definitely took on sense then. And Robert did wonder. He said, well were some of the things we looted when you only were seeing them as being preserved. Different times, as you say, the times change

MARIO CHRISTODOULOU: I feel like I'm getting closer to the true source of so much of Khmer and Thai art in Australia.

But really all I have is a name. Peng Seng.

I need to confirm that Peng Seng really was the source of artefacts in the David Jones gallery.

And I need to work out who he is.

And then, just when I need it, we get a lucky break.

So the art gallery of New South Wales has found the David Jones boxes.
CATHY BEALE: Oh, brilliant.

MARIO CHRISTODOULOU: Remember those records the ABC librarian Cathy was trying to get at - the internal records from David Jones Gallery, that were inaccessible.

Well, turns out, amidst the chaos of the gallery renovations they've been found.

Only problem is: there's so many of them.

MARIO CHRISTODOULOU: I don't quite know what to ask for because there are a hundred boxes they have something which I don't know what it means, but it just says exhibition files
CATHY BEALE: that could be gold.
MARIO CHRISTODOULOU: but they also have correspondence with exhibitors. But then Box 48 through to 54 are sales records.
CATHY BEALE: Oh.

MARIO CHRISTODOULOU: A couple of weeks later, I'm being taken into the bowels of the NSW Art Gallery.

A staff member leads me through a loading dock and some security doors, into the basement.

He guides me into the library, where builders are still walking around in the midst of the renovations.

Inside there's a table where the first of the boxes is waiting for me

There are hundreds of papers and photographs.

I find sales records where I can see David Jones's customers.

They include the National Gallery, the Art Gallery of South Australia, the National Gallery of Victoria ...

There's a media mogul, wealthy businessmen, a former president of the IOC... at one point I even find the name of Princess Diana's stepfather.

Then I come across a manilla folder.

And when I open it, I know straight away that I've found what I'm looking for.

It's full of letters between Robert Haines and his Bangkok dealers.

Sure enough, perhaps the most significant dealer is Peng Seng.

There are some strange and I think significant things in the paperwork and on shipping orders the artefacts are described as "handicraft" not antiques.

In one instance, Peng Seng insists on being paid through multiple bank accounts.

And in one series of letters, it looks as if Haines and Peng Seng are conspiring to get around the Thai Government's export controls.

One shipping manifest from February 1968, shows he supplied a huge variety of items - bronze sitting buddhas, Terracotta heads, Khmer Limestone heads, stone torsos, tablets, pots.

But I have no idea where it was all coming from, and none of the documents I've found in Australia have any answers.

We need someone in Cambodia to help us fill in the gaps.

And then, Cathy finds the perfect person.

His name is Bradley Gordon and he lives in Phnom Penh.

He works with the Cambodian Government and his job is to track down stolen Khmer antiquities across the world.

BRADLEY GORDON: so we're tracking about 2500 statues in museums outside of Cambodia.

MARIO CHRISTODOULOU: He tells me, even when he finds a suspicious artefact in a gallery overseas, those galleries aren't always very happy about giving them up.

BRADLEY GORDON: our position with museums is, look, we know and you know, it's common knowledge that many of these Khmer statues have been stolen. Prove to us you have legal title. We have a small number who are being very cooperative and helpful in sharing with us the documents they have. Um...We have others who are being very difficult and we have a large number who are just being silent at the moment.

MARIO CHRISTODOULOU: It seems like this impossible task. Galleries are, in most cases, under no legal obligation to hand over anything.

Cambodia is a small developing country.

SO it's tough for them to force the hand of international galleries.

BRADLEY GORDON: one over arching kind of like principle for how we're operating is that Cambodia has never given permission for any objects to go out. So when we're talking to museums and private collections, we're saying to them, if you possess these Khmer objects, you should prove to us you have legal title and we know the answer is gonna be they don't have it.

MARIO CHRISTODOULOU: And from his research, Bradley Gordon is sure many works made their way to Australia.

BRADLEY GORDON: Definitely Australia is on our radar. And we know that a number of statues ended up there.

MARIO CHRISTODOULOU: I take a deep breath and ask the question I'm really hoping he has an answer to: what does he know about a mysterious dealer in Thailand called Peng Seng?

BRADLEY GORDON: So, Peng Seng, you know, we've done some research on him in the past and we know that he had a shop in Bangkok.

MARIO CHRISTODOULOU: That's got to be the same guy - Bradley tells me his name has come up in paperwork from the 70s.

BRADLEY GORDON: Um...He was a Thai-Chinese dealer, his name has come up in a number of cases, so, you know, when we see his name now we know that's a sign that, we should look a lot more carefully at anything that went through his hands.

MARIO CHRISTODOULOU: Not only has he heard of Peng Seng, he's telling me that Peng Seng might be connected to a landmark moment in the history of art theft. The Sotheby's case.

That involved the attempted sale by Sotheby's of a massive 220 kilogram tenth century temple Guardian allegedly looted from a temple site.

Next, he says something that floors me

BRADLEY GORDON: and we know that he worked for Douglas Latchford

MARIO CHRISTODOULOU: Douglas Latchford. That's a big deal.

You see in the world of Cambodian art looters, Douglas Latchford, is perhaps one of the most infamous dealers there is.

According to evidence from US prosecutors he falsified provenance, doctored shipping records; he even emailed photos of one artefact as he described it - "fresh out of the ground". Other emails showed artefacts still covered in dirt, detailing their locations inside Cambodia.

In 2020, before he faced trial on smuggling charges, he died.

In the art world, his name is toxic.

Art trafficking experts say any objects linked to him should be considered stolen until proven otherwise.

The founder of Netscape, the Denver Art Museum, our own National Gallery -- even Latchford's own daughter -- they've all returned items that were sold by the disgraced dealer.

And now, Bradley is telling me that Peng Seng ...worked with Latchford.

Do you suspect at all that looted artworks from Latchford may have gone through him?
BRADLEY GORDON: That's the suspicion based on some, some evidence we have.
MARIO CHRISTODOULOU: So if you see Peng Seng's name, you should be a little bit suspicious.
BRADLEY GORDON: Correct. We should be doing a lot, a lot more scrutiny of, you know, the statute and where it came from

MARIO CHRISTODOULOU: So when I started this whole investigation I had a question.

Where do the Khmer works in our major galleries come from?

So far I've traced many of them ...from the National Gallery, to the fashionable 70s David Jones Gallery in the centre of Sydney.

And then I've traced David Jones's works, back to a hushed, appointment-only shop in Bangkok, run by Peng Seng.

And now, I've been told that Peng Seng was working with Douglas Latchford, one of the most infamous dealers of Cambodian art.

So -- where did Latchford get his antiquities?

Well ... someone who knows more than most about Latchford's shady practices is the journalist who first exposed him.

He works at the New York Times, and his name is Tom Mashberg.

Tom, can you hear me?
TOM MASHBERG: Yes, Mario, I'm here.

MARIO CHRISTODOULOU: He's speaking to me from Los Angeles.

TOM MASHBERG: I think it was very explosive when all of that came out, because right away museums... they had been given a blow because they had to re-evaluate their collections in terms of whether the items had gone through Latchford or been donated by Latchford or by a combination of Latchford and Bunker and. While those questions were arising, Cambodia was starting to become aggressive in its demands for provenance and other proof of legitimate ownership of its objects, so it was as if everything it combined come together at the same time to create a kind of a crisis for museums and for Latchford.

MARIO CHRISTODOULOU: Douglas Latchford was for a long time considered a respectable art collector in Cambodia. He was even awarded one of the country's highest honours.

Tom's stories exposed what he described as the dirty little secret of Museums and Galleries...they'd been buying likely looted artefacts for decades.

TOM MASHBERG: what we've learnt is that there were several looting gangs that came together and basically quickly discovered that there was a eager Western market for objects that had been sitting in these temples deep in the jungles or sort of lost or overgrown. there were people who took advantage, who understood that if they get carted off these items and brought them to mostly the Thai border, that there would be intermediaries there who would pay cash for them and that they would then move on to people like Latchford and others and make their way into the Western market.

MARIO CHRISTODOULOU: Worse still he was fuelling the violence and destruction inside Cambodia during the 70s, according to US investigators.

Tom actually travelled to Thailand where he met up with Latchford, who was around 80 years old at the time, with fading health.

TOM MASHBERG: You know, he was the kind of guy who, you know, loved to to joke and, you know, drink a pitcher of cocktails at the end of the day. He truly loved these items. He was passionate about them. It was just that he was, obviously, I think, became. Well, I think it's fair to say that he became very arrogant and he felt like that he was sort of a hero to the Cambodian people for basically returning to them some of the items that he was responsible for looting.

MARIO CHRISTODOULOU: At the end of his life Douglas Latchford was anything BUT a hero.

US investigators had compiled an extensive indictment against him.

In 2020, before he faced trial on smuggling charges, he died.

I can see why galleries feel compelled to return objects linked to him.

And if they're willing to return Latchford's objects...well, what about those that - according to what I've been told - came from his accomplice?

By connecting the dots between Latchford and Peng Seng, we haven't just tainted the works sold to the David Jones Gallery...it's tainted a whole bunch of artefacts around the world.

When I start digging, I find that Peng Seng's artefacts ended up in Galleries as far afield as Cleveland - there are even works from him in the New York Met!

But before I go to the galleries with what I've found I need proof - evidence that Latchford and Peng Seng were working together.

And then, Bradley Gordon, the lawyer in Cambodia, tells me he's found something.

It's a 1974 report from an international auction house, describing how Latchford and Peng Seng were working together to smuggle goods out of Thailand.

ACTOR: "This is my report from my recent trip to the far east...I have explored extensively with Peng Seng and Latchford how to get "legitimate" papers for the large koh ker [sculpture]"

MARIO CHRISTODOULOU: The report goes on to explain that Peng Seng was willing to falsify a provenance letter.

ACTOR: Peng Seng will send us a letter written and signed by somebody in Bangkok. He will say that he has seen the piece in Peng Seng's shop three years ago. Peng Seng would like us to give him the exact text that we want in this letter"

MARIO CHRISTODOULOU: Then they explain how they will send two objects at the same time to confuse anyone who queries the purchase.

ACTOR: "On all future shipments of important pieces only, both Peng Seng and Latchford will ship... a modern piece of about the same size and same subject described on the airway bill in such a way that nobody will know to which piece the airway bill applies"

MARIO CHRISTODOULOU: So - according to this letter - Peng Seng and Latchford, were in cahoots! And they were working together to sneak artefacts out of Thailand.

When I call Cathy - the ABC librarian - she's a little disturbed about what this might mean.

CATHY BEALE: that's pretty appalling. I mean, because Angkor is just and the whole Khmer temples are just so important to the Cambodian people.
I mean, you're coming to the assumption that most of these pieces have been looted. It's quite depressing. Oh, in some form or another. And it just makes you think if there's any doubt, I mean, obviously, this is not in the museums or the galleries interest, but if there's doubt they should just be returned to country of origin.
MARIO: what are the legitimate sources of of Cambodian art during this period? like how do you get it? How do you...get it through legally?
CATHY BEALE: Yeah, I don't know. And what makes any of it okay, really?

MARIO CHRISTODOULOU: I can't help thinking of Sopeap, and her sadness at hearing all those stories about gods hacked from temples -- these aren't decorative items, they have real cultural and spiritual meaning.

Cambodians continue to feel deep loss even decades after these ancient artefacts were removed and scattered across the world.

Peng Seng seems to have been the main supplier to the David Jones Gallery, but the items arrived in Australia, they got mixed up with works from other suppliers, and we don't know where they ended up.

So it's time to take what I've discovered to the galleries to see if they can help.

Perhaps the biggest owner of artefacts from the David Jones gallery from the 60s and 70s is the National Gallery of Australia. So that's where I head.

I've just pulled up to the National Gallery in Canberra
There are at least 19 items inside the gallery that came from the David jones gallery. Can I say with a hundred per cent certainty that every single of those individual items went through Latchford and Peng Seng - no...but what I can say is that the supply chain was tainted.
And the same is true for any David Jones customer.
And if the supply chain is tainted...In the past, the gallery has said, that's enough to consider handing the works back.
In fact, just last year they said "If, on the balance of probability, it is considered likely that an item was stolen, illegally excavated...or unethically acquired, the National Gallery will take steps to deaccession and repatriate it".
Surely, now, that we can connect the David Jones Gallery, to one of Latchford's accomplices - Peng Seng - surely that meets this standard.
Let's see what they have to say.

I meet up with the head of the Gallery's Provenance project, Bronwyn Campbell.

So we've been delving into the history of the the David Jones Gallery. I've discovered that the David Jones Gallery was sourcing many of its Khmer artefacts from a dealer in Bangkok who was actually working with Douglas Latchford. Does that concern you at all?
BRONWYN CAMPBELL: Every piece of information is of interest to me and I would certainly like to hear more about that.

MARIO CHRISTODOULOU: During our interview, when I ask her about the criteria for returning an object, she doesn't give a firm answer. To-use-her-words, it's considered on a case-by-case basis.

MARIO CHRISTODOULOU: So what is the standard that you apply to repatriation? Is there a a checklist? Are there certain things that you look for? When will you consider repatriating something?
BRONWYN CAMPBELL: If we're sure that something has been illegally obtained or unethically obtained? We would consider repatriating it. And when I say sure, I mean, you know, more than 50% certain we're looking at, as I said, at a balance of probabilities so if it's more likely than not.
MARIO CHRISTODOULOU: But how do you make that judgement? How do you what's what's enough proof?
BRONWYN CAMPBELL: It's a case by case basis. Some sorts of materials are more likely to attract evidence than others and documentation than others. the way forward, generally speaking, is to not continue to retain anything that is tainted by illegal or unethical actions.

MARIO CHRISTODOULOU: After this interview I email Bronwyn all the evidence I've got.

I'm hoping they will take it seriously.

She responds a couple of weeks later and tells me the gallery will now be reviewing items connected to the David Jones Gallery and Peng Seng.

I also contact the Cambodian Government and ask what it thinks about the connection with Peng Seng.

And I get a response from Minister of Culture and Fine Arts Phoeurng Sackona, and she's not so relaxed about the findings.

She calls on Australian galleries to return suspicious items "unless they can demonstrate they legally possess them".

She tells me she's also aware of the name Peng Seng, and items connected to him raise "substantial concerns."

Cambodia Government Lawyer Bradley Gordon says behind the scenes he's been in ongoing negotiations with the National Gallery over the return of some sculptures and, to be fair to them, he says they've been cooperative and forthright.

We also told public galleries in NSW, South Australia and Victoria about the David Jones's connection with Peng Seng. And like the NGA, they all said they would consider the information but made no firm commitment about returning objects.

We get in touch with other galleries and tell them about the connection between their objects and Peng Seng

A spokeswoman from the New York Metropolitan museum said it had long been reviewing objects connected to Douglas Latchford, and had returned objects in the past.

A spokesman from the Cleveland Museum of Art said its approach to acquiring works of art has evolved over the decades and it's much more rigorous and transparent now.

These days It said it investigates works and "restitutes" them where appropriate,

So far we've discovered that the supply chain for one of the most respectable and high profile Khmer art shops is highly suspect.

In the next episode, I track some specific objects, from remote temple sites to galleries and private collections across the world.

And I find them, in some pretty strange places...including an Aussie suburban garage.

Do you think some of these works may have been, you know, stolen or looted from temple sites and found their way into your father's hands?

DANIEL BIANCARDI: Possibly. Definitely. Sure.

MARIO CHRISTODOULOU: That's coming up in the second episode of our two part series, "Kidnapping the gods".

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