Operation Antiquity is one of a series of operations by U.S. federal law enforcement agencies to investigate the smuggling of ancient artifacts from Thailand, Vietnam, Myanmar (Burma), Cambodia, Laos, and other countries within the Southeast Asian peninsula to the United States since April 2003. After several years of quiet development and undercover work, the case was made public on January 24, 2008 when federal law enforcement officers raided four museums and two antiquities dealers throughout California.
The case involved a coordinated efforts from individuals whom smuggled artifacts from Southeast Asia to the United States, as well as a scandal in which several museums in California accepted donations knowing full well the illicit methods in which they were obtained. More than 10,000 looted cultural relics were seized in this case, many of them from the Ban Chiang archaeological site. It later facilitated the repatriation of large numbers of artifacts to Thailand and other countries and set higher standards of accountability for museum officials who deal with cultural property.
The main suspects in the case were Armand Labbé and Robert Olson. Labbé was the curator at the Bowers Museum but died before any of the raids took place. The Bowers Museum was one of those raided for possessing smuggled artifacts. Robert Olson started collecting antiquities in 1970. Often these antiquities were looted from archaeological sites and then smuggled from the country by middle men or himself, allegedly. He would then sell these artifacts to museums across California for a profit. Marc Pettibone, an American living in Thailand and alleged coconspirator of Olson, collected ancient artifacts for Olsen from all over Thailand, and assisted in bribing customs for the smooth transportation of artifacts to the United States. Olson's regulars included Beverly Hills home improvement stores and private art galleries such as the Silk Roads Gallery. After smuggling ancient artifacts into the United States, art galleries took the lead in finding people who needed tax deductions and providing appraisers services, inflating the price of artifacts obtained from Thailand as the appraised value. Individuals would then donate them to museums to receive a tax deduction for art donations. It is said that there are more cultural relics in American museums than excavations.
Silk Roads Gallery was run by Jonathan Markell and was one of the initially raided businesses. Markell and Olson alike were singled out in the investigation due to their numerous ties to the smuggled artifacts in circulation. The duo were involved in the inflated appraisal values of many artifacts, some inflated as much as 400 times the actual value, and were believed to have personally coached individuals to donate these items. Most donations remained under the sum of $5000 each to avoid further documentation required by the IRS.
The IRS and various other Federal Law Enforcement agencies began to pay attention to this pattern of criminal activity in 2003, launching a federal investigation probe code-named "Operation Antiquity". Todd Swain, a National Park Service agent, went undercover as a private collector, referred to as Hoyt, to collect money from two art dealers has repeatedly purchased ancient artifacts looted from Thailand and donated them to several California art museums. Agents discovered that the directors of these museums had some level of knowledge about the origins of the ancient artifacts, and agreed to accept donations. While many of the museums cooperated with federal agents, they all continued their protest that all artifacts in their possession were legitimately sourced. Personnel and informants later stated that obtainment of many artifacts and art pieces is legally murky. At the time of the raids, the curator of the Bowers museum, Peter Keller, stated he had done nothing criminal, however appraisals done by late Bowers curator Armand Labbé's girlfriend during Keller's employment raise questions. Labbé was a known associate of Robert Olson and is admitted to have accepted smuggled or dubiously obtained artifacts prior.
The case was made public on January 24, 2008, when federal law enforcement officers raided multiple museums, shops, warehouses and homes of private art collectors in California. Later raids in Chicago would illustrate the wide spread corruption within the museum and art business across the globe. The investigation uncovered a large number of ancient artifacts from Ban Chiang and other prehistoric sites in Thailand that were collected by at least five California museums, including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Museum of International Folk Art, USC Pacific Asia Museum, Bowers Museum, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive.
Following the raids, Dr. Joyce White assisted the U.S. government as an expert witness in identifying more than 10,000 artifacts belonging to Ban Chiang and related prehistoric cultural objects. As a leading expert on Northeast Thai archaeology, she was brought in to assess the legitimacy of many artifacts as well as to testify to the irreparable damage looting cultural objects causes. One of the main sites in which artifacts were looted from was the UNESCO heritage site Ban Chiang.
Robert Olsen was arraigned in 2013 but pleaded not guilty. The trial was expected to take place in November 2016, but Olson's ill health delayed several times until his plea was withdrawn after his death in May 2017. Roxanna Brown, director of the Southeast Asian Ceramics Museum at Bangkok University, originally assisted the prosecution in investigating the case, but the prosecution later found out that Brown and Olsen had a close relationship and had emails exchanged between the two parties: which Brown allowed Olson used her electronic signature as proof of the museum's donation, and Olson promised to pay Brown an honorarium. The prosecution changed Brown from a witness to a suspect, and Brown was arrested in Seattle on May 9, 2008, but Brown died in the detention center five days later. Roxanna Brown's family later won a civil suit against the federal government for her death. Mark Pettibone was indicted by U.S. prosecutors in 2012, but could not be extradited to the U.S. for trial.
In contrast to the high-profile search operation in January 2008, the prosecution's investigation stagnated in the following years, and no museum officials or collectors were prosecuted. However, the case still has partial results. Jonathan and Cari Markell, the owners of Silk Roads Gallery, pleaded guilty to the charges in 2015. Jonathan was sentenced to 18 months in prison and one year of supervised probation for trafficking in looted antiquities and forged documents; Jonathan and Carrie were each sentenced to three years of unsupervised probation. In addition, they had to pay a fine of about $2,000 for the return of 337 artifacts from their homes and seized galleries to Southeast Asia, totaling about $25,000.
Some museums found to be holding smuggled artifacts have returned them to Thailand: in October 2014, the Bowers Museum returned 542 artifacts to Thailand, and Museum of International Folk Art returned 68 artifacts, which museums avoided by returning artifacts. was prosecuted. The Bangkok Post reported that, thanks to the hard work of the Thai and American authorities, the ancient relics looted from the archaeological site have been returned, and the Thai government welcomes the repatriation of these relics. This case is of great significance in the United States, mainly for two reasons: First, this is an investigation led by the U.S. federal government, not initiated by a complaint from a foreign government. Second, The US government sets a higher standard of accountability for museum officials who deal with cultural property according National Stolen Property Act and Archaeological Resources Protection Act of 1979.