Denver Art Museum Returning Artifacts To Cambodia

DENVER, CO — The Denver Art Museum is set to return four artifacts to Cambodia after an investigation revealed they came to the museum through a man who was indicted for trafficking looted antiquities.

Douglas Latchford was charged in 2019 by U.S. prosecutors for trafficking looted artifacts, but he died before the case could move forward.

Then an international collaboration of journalists and news organizations — the Pandora Papers — started reaching out to museum officials in June about their artifacts that were linked to Latchford, The Washington Post reports.

The Denver Art Museum then removed four artifacts from its collection.

"The museum is now working with the government to return the pieces to Cambodia," a museum spokesperson told the Post.

The Cambodian Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts said the artifacts are of "extraordinary cultural significance," according to the report.

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The Denver Art Museum is one of 10 museums around the world that had artifacts connected with Latchford, according to the Pandora Papers.

Latchford believed that if he didn't take the Cambodian artifacts, they would've been destroyed by the Khmer Rouge, according to a report by The New York Times.

The relics that are set to be returned from the Denver museum include a prehistoric bell, a sandstone goddess, a sun god and a lintel with carvings of Hindu gods.