Illicit Antiquities
Research Centre
against the theft & traffic
of archaeology

The sequestered warehouses

Peter Watson

McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research
Downing Street
Cambridge
CB2 3ER

Culture Without Context

Issue 2,
Spring 1998

Views of warehouse Go to text

In January 1997, acting on the initiative of their Italian colleagues, Swiss police sealed four warehouses in the Geneva Freeport. The warehouses were understood to belong to one Giacomo Medici, an Italian businessman who had been arrested by the Carabinieri art squad, suspected of being the 'mastermind' behind an extensive operation to smuggle illicitly excavated antiquities out of Italy. Mr Medici was held for two months in Latino Prison before being released under house arrest.

The warehouses were found to contain approximately 10,000 'finely-made' antiquities from sites all over Italy - they were of Etruscan, Roman, Apulian, and Campanian origin - and valued at 50 billion lira, or £25 million.

As part of the investigation by the Carabinieri (which had started in 1995, and made use of documents provided by the producers of a Channel 4 'Dispatches' programme originally obtained by an ex-employee of Sotheby's auction house) several objects were recovered in Britain, with the help of Scotland Yard. They included a Corinthian capital, a sarcophagus and a Roman bas-relief that had been stolen some years before from a residence in San Felice Circeo.

These are some of the more than sixty photographs provided by the Carabinieri, showing the objects seized. The warehouses appear to have been more than just storerooms. Two at least were set out as showrooms, with shelves, tables and seats, presumably where prospective customers could view the objects in relative comfort. Several antiquities had Sotheby's labels attached, giving details of the sales in which they had appeared.

These objects were normally consigned to Sotheby's (and possibly to other auction houses) from three companies, all controlled by Giacomo Medici. They were: The Hydra Gallery, Christian Boursaud and Editions Services. Editions Services shared a fiduciary address with a fourth company, Xoilan Trading, owned by the London dealer Robin Symes.

Consignment notes from Christian Boursaud and Editions Services to Sotheby's in London, showed that on occasion, hundreds of objects were consigned for sale at the same time, with goods valued in excess of £250,000. Comparison of catalogue illustrations also showed that antiquities first consigned by Christian Boursaud, and which failed to sell, were later consigned by Editions Services.

The seizure of the 10,000 objects in the four warehouses is believed to be the largest of its kind ever made. It is understood that Mr Medici is to face trial in Italy later this year.

Following Mr Medici's arrest, and the seizure of the objects, and partly as a result of the Channel 4 'Dispatches' programme, the Carabinieri sent a 300-page document, a Commision Rogatoire, to Scotland Yard in London, requesting their cooperation in interviewing a number of British subjects, some of them employees, or ex-employees, of Sotheby's. The results of these investigations have not yet been released.

First posted October 1998; Page design updated September 2006