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This investigation reveals how forged export licences and fictitious ownership documents have been used in the trafficking of smuggled Egyptian antiquities in both Europe and the US.
Back in 2018, French Egyptologist Marc Gabolde had already spent more than a year studying an ancient granite tombstone to try and determine its origin. The tombstone - or stele - was unlike any other artifact. It consisted of a royal decree written on a tablet and attributed to that most famous of Egyptian kings, Tutankhamun.
Gabolde was suspicious of the ownership documents relating to this
artefact and he took his doubts to the Louvre Museum in France,
but they dismissed them. But the French authorities subsequently
launched an investigation into seven Egyptian artefacts that had
found their way from France to the Louvre Museum in the UAE
capital Abu Dhabi.
These investigations came after others made by the US authorities into the legality of trading in the Nedjemankh sarcophagus, which led to it being returned to Egypt in 2019. The French and US investigations overlap both in the names of the suspects involved and in other aspects.
Using information from both the French and US enquiries, we have traced the backgrounds of those individuals alleged to have owned the suspect artefacts. And we can reveal that the same chain of ownership was applied to other antiquities, which ended up in museums and galleries around the world.
We also show how some antiquities were smuggled out of Egypt after the January 2011 revolution and the subsequent unrest and then came into the possession of European dealers of Arab origin. They tampered with the ownership documents and export licenses relating to these objects, which then were able to pass through customs in European countries, because the authorities in Europe failed to implement any precautionary measures.
An estimated 3,000 artefacts were stolen from Egyptian museums following the January 2011 revolution. The American organisation Antiquities Alliance puts the total value of these stolen objects at between three and six billion dollars. Over the last several decade, 32,000 artefacts have vanished before they could even reach the archaeological storerooms of the Ministry of Antiquities and Cairo University. There are no official figures for the number of objects found in illicit archaeological digs that have been smuggled out of Egypt with false ownership documents and export licences and then trafficked abroad.
Egyptologist Susanna Thomas was the first to ask questions about
the Tutankhamun stele, when she put out a tweet asking about this
stele “that we’ve never heard of before.”
Seeing this tweet made Gabolde so curious that he began to
undertake a study of the stele in 2019, with the approval of the
Louvre Abu Dhabi.
Gabolde expressed his doubts over the ownership of the stele to
the Louvre Museum but received no response. The French
authorities, however, subsequently began their own enquiries into
the licenses relating to hundreds of artefacts which had been sold
from France to the Louvre Abu Dhabi Museum between July 2018 and
March 2020. They accused the Pierre Bergé gallery in France of
selling 56 million dollars’ worth of antiquities, dealing in which
was legally dubious, between 2013 and 2017.
In May 2022, former Louvre director Jean-Luc Martinez was charged
with conspiracy, fraud, collaboration with an organised criminal
enterprise, and money laundering. His appeal was rejected and the
charges were upheld.
In September 2023, the German owner of the Dionysus Gallery of
Ancient Coins and Antiquities, Serop Simonian, was arrested and
charged with involvement in the smuggling of Egyptian artefacts
and with coordinating the suspected illicit sale of antiquities
from the Louvre Museum in France to Louvre Abu Dhabi in 2016.
These included the sale of the Tutankhamun stele for €8.5 million
($9.2 million).
Simonian denied the charges against him. He insisted that the
Egyptian artefacts had not been smuggled out recently but had
belonged to his family, and had been brought from Egypt in the
1970s, before any laws had been put in place to control the trade
in Egyptian antiquities.
Notwithstanding Simonian's denial, two other defendants -
Christophe Kunicki and Richard Semper, both French - admitted to
jointly forging documents for these artefacts.
The French investigators, bolstered by Gabolde's expert opinions, managed to establish the provenance of the stele, tracing it to the Swiss city of Basel in the 1990s. The documents relating to the artefact indicated that two people had previously owned it, increasing doubts that it had been legally traded.
The provenance of the Tutankhamun stele is similar to that of other
antiquities, most notably the sarcophagus of Nedjemankh, which Egypt
recovered from America’s Metropolitan Museum in 2019, after it was
proved that it had been brought from Egypt illegally in the wake of
the 2011 revolution.
The first owner of these artefacts was an Egyptian antiquities dealer
named Habib Tawadros. In the 1930s they passed to a German naval
officer named Johannes Behrens and were then owned by one of Behrens’
relatives, Bernd Lehmann, before passing through the Pierre Bergé
auctioneers in France to museums and galleries around the world.
Painting in five pieces
Origin: Egypt
Year of sale: 2014
Vendor: Auction by Pierre Bergé & Associés with Christophe Kunicki
as expert
Buyer: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, USA
First owner:
Egyptian Habib Tawadros
Second owner:
German Johannes Behrens
Third owner:
German Bernd Lehmann
Fourth owner:
Unspecified private group
A member of the French investigating committee, who declined to be
named, says that some artefacts are thought to come from ancient
collections with no ownership documents. This complicates the process
of verifying the provenance and at the same time facilitates illegal
dealing.
The French enquiries have raised questions over the identity of Habib
Tawadros, the original owner of the artefacts, which are suspected of
being sold illegally.
It turns out that Tawadros was an Egyptian dealer in antiquities
active in the 1940s. According to “The Tourist's Egyptian Companion”,
Tawadros' shop was located in El Gomhouriya Street in Cairo.
Another book, “The Antiquities Trade in Egypt 1880 – 1930” documented
Tawadros selling several artefacts to the Egyptian Museum. We have
also obtained a copy of the archives of the Egyptian Museum, which
indicate that the museum acquired roughly 64 objects from Habib
Tawadros during the 1940s. He is also listed as the first owner of a
collection of original archaeological artefacts sold between 1945 and
1948.
Habib Tawadros was also issued a licence (No. 86) to sell antiquities.
His shop contained 5,877 authentic antiquities, including scarabs and
both silver and gold beads.
Please click to navigate between pieces
Artifact
Golden sarcophagus of Nedjemankh
Year of sale
2017
Origin
Egypt
Vendor/Vendor at auction
Habib Tawadros
Buyer
Simonian brothers 1971
Pierre Bergé & Associés auctioneers
Jean-Luc Martinez
Present location
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Recovery
Recovered by Egypt 2019, since left Egypt in 2011 under false
license, which bore stamp not used in Egypt in 1971.
Artifact
Limestone stele – attributed to Pa-di-séna, senior guard of
temple of Hathor
Origin
Egypt
Vendor/Vendor at auction
Habib Tawadros
Buyer
Sold through Pierre Bergé & Associés auction house to
Christophe Kunicki
Recovery
Article recovered by Egypt from New York
Artifact
Twisted table led with goat’s head
Year of sale
Dec 18 2009
Origin
1st-2nd centuries CE
Vendor/Vendor at auction
Gorny and Mosch Auctioneers, Munich, for article 18
Buyer
Rupert Wace Ancient Art Ltd., London
Artifact
Completion of the sale of the same artifact
Year of sale
2010
Origin
Unknown
Vendor/Vendor at auction
Rupert Wace Ancient Art Ltd., London
Buyer
Safani Gallery, New York; then sold to MFA Boston
Provenance
Sold in Munich by Bernd Lehmann of Kulmbach, Germany in 2000.
Affidavit submitted that belonged to his father-in-law
Johannes Behrens (1874-1947) of Bremen, a naval officer from
1908 to 1939.
Present location
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, USA. Catalogue number 2010.372.
Artifact
Roman silver bowl
Year of sale
Dec 2010
Origin
Roman
Vendor/Vendor at auction
Sold by collection of Max Palevsky from Johannes Behrens
collection at Christie’s, New York
Buyer
unknown
Provenance
Bernd Lehmann; previously in German private collection since
1994; originally owned by Johannes Behrens
Artifact
Hellenistic Greek marble funerary panel
Year of sale
April 2012
Origin
second half of 1st century BCE
Vendor/Vendor at auction
Christie’s, London
Provenance
Johannes Behrens
Artifact
Bronze mask known as Mask of Paposelinos
Origin
Greco-Roman – first half of 1st century BCE
Vendor/Vendor at auction
Private collector of antiquities in Berlin
Buyer
Fondazione Sorgente, Italy
Provenance
Collection of Johannes Behrens
Artifact
Painting in five pieces depicting Crossing of the Red Sea
Year of sale
Offered for sale in Nov 2013; sold in Paris 2014
Origin
Egypt
Vendor/Vendor at auction
Pierre Bergé & Associés auctioneers, with Christophe Kunicki
as expert
Buyer
Metropolitan Museum of Fine Arts
Alleged provenance
From collection of Habib Tawadros; sold in 1936 to Johannes
Behrens and via his family reached Bernd Lehmann; then sold in
1986 to private collection
Present location
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Catalogue number
2014.629
Artifact
Funerary mask from Fayum portraits
Year of sale
Offered for sale Nov 2013 and sold in 2014
Origin
Egypt
Vendor/Vendor at auction
Sold by Pierre Bergé & Associés, Paris to Phoenix Ancient Art,
Geneva
Buyer
Swiss billionaire Jean-Claude Gandour
Provenance
From collection of Habib Tawadros; in 1936 in collection of
Johannes Behrens (1874-1947), Bremen, Germany; in 1986 bought
by auctioneers Pierre Bergé & Associés
Present location
Swiss billionaire Jean-Claude Gandour
Artifact
Strip with floral decoration
Year of sale
Sept 1948
Origin
Egypt; Roman period
Vendor/Vendor at auction
Habib Tawadros
Buyer
Ray Winfield Smith, American (1897-1982)
Present location
Corning Museum of Glass, New York USA - Gift of Carl Berkowitz
and Derek Content 1976
Artifact
Floral frieze
Year of sale
1948
Origin
Egypt or Italy; Roman period
Vendor/Vendor at auction
Habib Tawadros
Buyer
Ray Winfield Smith
Present location
Corning Museum of Glass, New York USA - Gift of Carl Berkowitz
and Derek Content 1976
Artifact
Inlaid plaque
Year of sale
1948
Origin
Roman period
Vendor/Vendor at auction
Habib Tawadros
Buyer
Ray Winfield Smith
Present location
Corning Museum of Glass, New York USA - Gift of Carl Berkowitz
and Derek Content 1976
Artifact
Mosaic bar in shape of snake
Year of sale
1948
Origin
Dates from between 99-25 BCE
Vendor/Vendor at auction
Habib Tawadros
Buyer
Ray Winfield Smith
Present location
Corning Museum of Glass, New York USA - Gift of Carl Berkowitz
and Derek Content 1976
Yousef Rashid, a visiting lecturer and founder of the Egyptology
department at Passion Passport, says: “The Egyptian Museum buys
antiquities only from people they trust. Anyone who uses the name of
Habib Tawadros, and sale license information relating to him, must be
aware that he had no children or grandchildren who could take legal
action over this exploitation of his name.”
Dr Monica Hanna, an assistant professor of archaeology and cultural
heritage, says that all Egyptian antiquities dealers in the early
1900s had to apply to the Egyptian Museum for a licence to buy or sell
items from any archaeological collection. Only after a study had been
made of the collection would an export licence be issued, which would
include a careful description of each article.
She adds that the majority of licences used for selling antiquities
outside Egypt are forged copies of old licences. The use of licences
was suspended in 1979, under Minister of Culture Decree 14, and was
completely banned in 1983, under Antiquities Protection Law 117.
But investigations show that the following license came into the
possession of the Simonian family, who used it to trade illegally in
antiquities. So how did two of the Simonian brothers come by this
license?
On 29th May 2019, the then district attorney of New York, Cyrus Vance Jr., wrote to the Egyptian minister of antiquities to inform him that two Simonian brothers had used a forged copy of license no. 86 (owned by Tawadros) to sell the Nedjemankh sarcophagus to the Metropolitan Museum, and had used the same licence to trade in other Egyptian antiquities.
The number 1 in the date is handwritten in blue
The licence carries two dates of issue: 11 May 1971 and 1961
he licence does not carry the signature of the director general of the Egyptian Antiquities Organisation.
It bears a stamp reading “AR Egypt”, though at that time Egyptian stamps bore the initials “UAR”
The fact that the Simonians managed to acquire an antiquities licence
belonging to Habib Tawadros prompted us to look into the origins of
the Simonian family and their links to Tawadros.
The Simonian family is of Armenian origin. Four brothers were all
involved in the family trade in antiquities and jewellery, which was
set up in Tawadros's own shop in Cairo, after it was registered in the
family name. The family subsequently claimed that they were using
Tawadros's licence by virtue of having inherited it. The US
investigation disproved this. The Egyptian authorities had in 1971
cancelled any licence held by the Simonians, so it was clear to the
investigators that the Simonians had no authority to deal in
antiquities using a licence belonging to the art dealer Tawadros.
Manipulation of licenses for ancient Egyptian antiquities seems to
have happened frequently. Past investigations indicate that licence
116 - owned by Egyptian antiquities dealer Farag Abdel Rahim el Chaer
- was used in the falsification of invoices and ownership certificates
for a number of artefacts.
On 9 February 1975, Al-Ahram newspaper ran a story with the headline:
“Armenian jeweller killed in Saqqara in quarrel over antiquities
smuggling deal”. It included details of the murder of the fourth
Simonian brother, Abraham Simonian, in Saqqara, in Badrashin, while he
was arranging a deal to smuggle archaeological items out of Egypt.
The three brothers subsequently relocated from Egypt - one to the US and the other two to Germany.
The American investigators found that, when the Simonian brothers emigrated to Germany and the US, they had with them a cancelled export licence bearing the number 86 as well as forged ownership documents, all for use in trading in antiquities. The 1970 UNESCO Convention stipulates that a valid export licence, ownership documents, and/or purchase and sale invoices are required for any dealing in antiquities. This export licence finally ended up in the portfolio of documents and papers that Richard Semper and Christoph Konecki admitted forging for use in antiquities trading and which Semper submitted to the judge at their trial.
The name of Tawadros is linked with that of the German Johannes
Behrens – who was born and died in Bremen - in the chain of
ownership of some of the antiquities under investigation in
France.
Dealers in the artefacts listed as previously belonging to
Behrens, among others, say he was a German naval officer who built
up his collection of antiquities during his years of service
between 1930 and 1936. But an Egyptologist familiar with the case
- who declined to be named – maintains that there is no evidence
that Tawadros was active in the 1930s, the period during which
Behrens allegedly acquired artefacts from him.
This same source says that the Simonian brothers, together with
Roben Deeb, most likely made up the name Behrens to use on forging
ownership documents for antiquities, making out that he had
acquired them before laws governing the sale of antiquities came
into effect.
According to the US investigations, Roben Deeb would forge
ownership documents and invoices for antiquities when selling them
on the international market, claiming that Egyptian dealers had
previously sold the artefacts to German collectors or directly to
the Simonian family.
A search for the name Behrens in the Grabsteine index in Germany –
part of the geneology.com genealogical database –yielded more than
four thousand results. But none of these names matched the years
for Behrens’s birth and death (1874-1947) given in the ownership
documents. Neither was there any person called Johannes Behrens
listed as living in the German city of Bremen.
Six artefacts sold between 2009 and 2016 are attributed to the
Johannes Behrens collection, including a table leg with a goat
head, which was acquired by the Boston Museum of Fine Arts in
2010.
The museum's director of marketing and communications, Karen
Frascona, says the US State Department has revealed that the
documentation relating to ownership of the article is of dubious
authenticity, suggesting a new case of looting of antiquities.
The provenance of the Tutankhamun stele is similar to that of
another ancient artefact, which this time found its way to
Switzerland.
The information on original ownership and the doubtful sales
record of the stele is similar to that of an ancient Egyptian
painted panel, acquired by Swiss billionaire of Egyptian descent
Jean-Claude Gandour.
Gandour acquired this artefact in 2014 from the gallery Phoenix
Ancient Art in Geneva, which had purchased it at the Pierre Bergé
auction house for €1 million ($1.69m approx.).
Documents indicate that its first owner, Habib Tawadros, sold it in 1936 to Johannes Behrens, and that it then went to a private collection in Germany established in 1986 before going on sale at the French auction house in 2013. Because of the doubts surrounding the piece, Gandour handed it over for investigation by the French judiciary.
Not much is known about the half panel, except that it is one of
the “red shroud” paintings. According to the Phoenix Gallery of
Ancient Art 2014 catalogue, the painting may date from the
beginning of the second century CE, the era of the Antonine
dynasty.
The hairstyle of the portrait indicates that it probably dates
from the time of Trajan - ` 98 - 117 CE - according to the
academic guide to the Fayum images. This suggest a probable link
between this painting and two other Fayum portraits, given the
physical similarity between them.
The former director of the Coptic Museum in Egypt, Dr Atef Naguib,
thinks this painting most likely belongs to the group known
collectively as “the Fayum paintings” and believes that it was
stolen and sold abroad.
The way these artefact were handled abroad and the suspicion that they were smuggled out of Egypt encouraged us to look more closely into how they were trafficked. Despite the dearth of available information on this, the US investigation does shed some light on the smuggling of artefacts from Egypt.
In December 2011, a dealer in antiquities named Alaa Hussein sent Deeb
photos and videos of the Nedjemankh sarcophagus, which had been found
during an illegal archaeological dig in Minya Governorate (268 km
south of Cairo).
With the help of an Iranian businessman named Hassan Fazeli, Deeb was
able in 2012 to smuggle the sarcophagus out of Egypt inside a package
at a cost of €5,000 ($5,513).
Fazeli shipped the package from the port of Damietta to Dubai using a
forged export certificate, incorrect postage stamps, and a fake
invoice from a company in the UAE. He also provided misleading
information on provenance, stating that it was a Greco-Roman plaster
coffin, not an Egyptian one made of gold. Investigators believe that
Fazeli claimed the coffin was “Greco-Roman” to make it more difficult
to track.
From the UAE, Fazeli sent the sarcophagus on to Germany under a bill of lading which referred to it as “a wooden box with lid” originating in “Turkey” – a ruse repeatedly employed by Fazeli in the smuggling operations he is accused of carrying out.
Hassan Fazeli: decades of smuggling
Hassan Fazeli Trading LLC, based in the UAE, is owned by Iranian
dealer Hassan Fazeli.
The company has been accused of several instances of trafficking in
antiquities from areas of conflict and unrest. The first was in 2008,
when the company smuggled an Iraqi artefact to the US using forged
papers, which stated that the object came from Turkey.
In 2010, the company sent to the US five Egyptian antiquities,
claiming they were of Turkish origin (translator’s note: the document
in this link refers to the Libyan case in the para below), which were
then seized by the US authorities.
Similarly in 2011 the company sent to the UK an ancient Greek artefact
that it claimed was of Turkish origin and belonged to the Fazeli
family. The authorities however established that the object had been
stolen from Libya.
US investigators consider falsification of the nature of an article,
and of its value and country of origin, as a method of circumventing
the law and avoiding border controls.
Once an artefact arrives in Germany, Deeb would set about falsifying
the ownership documents, making out that the piece belongs to some
established collector, or to the Simonian family, as happened in the
case of the Nedjemankh sarcophagus.
An assistant to the Simonians sold several antiquities to museums,
galleries and collectors via a company owned by the Frenchman
Christophe Kunicki or through the Paris auction house Pierre Bergé.
Artefacts can be shipped from Germany to Paris - where the Egyptian sarcophagus turned up in September 2015 – with no customs shipping documents. This is because there are no border controls between Germany and France, both being within the Schengen zone.
Egyptian antiquities are brought into Europe using forged documents to
circumvent the laws relating to antiquities that apply within the
European Union (EU). European Council Regulation 116/2009 stipulates
that artefacts exported to an EU country that are over 50 years old
and with a value between €15,000 ($15,600) and €150,000 ($160,000)
must have an export licence.
However, a 2016 report by the German Federal Government Commissioner
for Culture and Media on the protection of cultural property in
Germany – under which the artefacts under investigation entered the
country – showed that the country’s laws relating to antiquities were
ineffective, especially when it came to checking export licences for
these artefacts.
EU countries are currently operating under Regulation (EU) 2019/880 of
the European Parliament and of the Council. Article 12 of this
regulation stipulates that the legal export of antiquities from their
country of origin must be established using appropriate supporting
documents and evidence. These include export certificates, deeds of
ownership, invoices, sales contracts, and insurance and transport
documents.
Legal expert and international arbitrator Dr Mohamed Elshahir explains that the UNIDROIT Convention on Stolen or Illegally Exported Cultural Objects - in force since 1998 - obliges EU countries to verify that the importing of artefacts is being done legally.
Since 2011, a number of antiquities have come into the possession of
the
Dionysus Gallery of Ancient Coins and Antiquities, owned by the
Simonian brothers and run by Roben Deeb.
This same period saw the consolidation of the relationship between
Deeb and the French dealer Kunicki, which dates from Deeb's visit in
2010, to the Pierre Bergé auction house. There he was introduced to
Kunicki, who then owned the “EURL CHRISTOPHE KUNICKI ” antiquities
trading company.
Kunicki and Deeb worked together to falsify the origin of artefacts.
And Kunicki and his friend Richard Semper used an old German
typewriter to forge ownership documents for these items, making them
look like they came from collectors of antiquities.
Kunicki then began exhibiting artefacts owned by Simonian in his company's gallery in Paris. The Louvre museums in both France and the UAE subsequently bought several artefacts from this gallery between 2013 and 2018.
Princess Henuttawy’s funerary collection for €4.5m ($4.9m).
The statue of Cleopatra for €35m (about $39m).
Tutankhamun stele.
Statue of Isis for €135,000.
Sculpture of wooden boat for €200,000.
Sculpture of hippopotamus for €900,000.
Fayum portrait.
Portrait of Princess Hannout 1
The Egyptian authorities, through the General Administration of
Recovered Antiquities, are supposed to be trying to recover
antiquities that have been sold by Europe auctioneers and galleries to
French and Emirati museums. This agency is specialised in monitoring
and tracking stolen artefacts that have been illegally smuggled out of
the country, and in working to recover them and returning them to
Egypt by all means possible - diplomatic and legal.
We contacted the Ministry of Antiquities to find out what they were
doing to recover the antiquities listed above. But the General
Administration of Recovered Antiquities refused to provide us with any
information on this, on the pretext that “all these question are the
subject of investigation and we are not at liberty to discuss them.”
Philippe Reltien (of Radio France's Investigative Unit) and Aïda
Delpuech contributed to this report.