It is a shock wave which sweeps over the world of Egyptology.
It shakes up the market, collectors but also museums, including the venerable institution of the Louvre and its little brother, the Louvre Abu Dhabi.
It highlights a possible network of traffickers driven by the lure of profit, and having taken advantage of the war in Syria and the Arab spring in Egypt, to bring out antiquities, then launder them.
To discover
Discover the “Best of the Goncourt Prize” collection
In concentric circles, the long-term investigation led by Judge Jean-Michel Gentil and the Central Office for the Fight against Trafficking in Cultural Property (OCBC) since 2018 has reached the former president and director of the Louvre, Jean-Luc Martinez .
Placed in police custody for three days, he was finally indicted on May 25 for
"complicity in fraud and money laundering"
.
The latter would have shown, at a minimum, a lack of vigilance, at worst complicity, during the acquisition in 2016, by the Louvre Abu Dhabi of an Egyptian royal stele, suspected of having been taken out…
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