Tomb Raiders of Iraq

Radio Télévision Suisse
Transcript

 

00:00:02,890 VO: -Tomb raiders, a thousand-year-old goddess and a world-renowned art dealer from Geneva. This is the situation of the Phoenix case. It all starts with a customs inspection back in December 2016. An employee of an antique company got arrested. The anti-fraud team seized an undeclared object.

00:00:23,231 Jean-Claude Duvoisin: -An antique lamp was found in a vehicle belonging to an import-export company selling antique art objects. The seizure triggered a customs investigation.

0’31 Jean-Claude Duvoisin, Deputy Head of Criminal Prosecutions, Federal Customs Office

00:00:38,682 VO: -For the inspectors, the treasure lied elsewhere, namely the documents discovered in the vehicle. These documents indicated the address of a secret stash. The place contained antique art pieces worth hundreds of millions of Swiss francs. These pieces were part of a global illegal traffic of antiques.

1’00 Title – Tomb Raiders of Iraq

00:01:05,292 VO: This simple customs check was a shock to the king of the antique trade, Ali Aboutaam. He is one of the most important antique dealers in the world. His trial has just ended. He was sentenced to 18 months' probation, escaping jail time.

00:01:21,313 Ali Aboutaam: -I am relieved now that it's all over after 6 years of investigation, more than 100 hearings. We have suffered enough.

1’26 Ali Aboutaam, Art dealer, Geneva

00:01:33,724 VO: -The dealer is free, but the case continues. His company Phoenix Ancient Art has clients including prestigious museums such as the Louvre.

00:01:42,887 Ali: -I started in Beirut. My father started the company. I grew up with this and I have a passion for ancient art.

00:01:55,439 Reporter: -When you see a piece, what is the first thing that strikes you?

00:02:00,576 Ali: -Its beauty.

00:02:02,875 VO: -A beauty that the art dealer keeps in a surprising place. The hiding place discovered by the customs officers was a unit in an ordinary storage room.

00:02:19,251 Storage manager: -Come with me, I will show you the inside of a cubicle.

00:02:24,937 VO: -The person in charge of the site gives us the tour.

00:02:28,079 Storage manager: -Here is a big unit of 7 square meters. We can store the contents of a 70 square metre apartment in here. This is what it looks like. Each unit has its own alarm.

00:02:43,614 VO: -This is where antiques worth millions of francs were stored by the art dealer. An ex-employee of Ali Aboutaam testifies anonymously.

00:02:54,803 Ex-employee’s voice: -The driver was caught by customs. He remained in custody all night. He returned the following day. When he came back, they all panicked. They urgently moved the objects to another cubicle. I think that these objects were not declared.

2’58 Modified voice: Ex-employee of Phoenix

00:03:11,963 VO: -Trying to escape the customs officers, the art dealer moved the antiques to a different unit. Thanks to the surveillance cameras, the customs officers found the objects in boxes. Among them, a Roman bust in an Ikea bag. Some pieces were broken. These artifacts were worth millions. Why hide these objects? Our witness has her ideas.

00:03:36,200 Ex-employee’s voice: -Many people come to sell their antiques in the store. I think it's clean, but there are some objects that Mr. Aboutaam buys under the table. Once in a parking lot, two people offered a large vase hidden in the trunk of their car. They offered it to Mr. Aboutaam. These under the table transactions are common.

00:04:01,799 VO: -Mysterious transactions, hidden artifacts, the Phoenix case is complex. To find out more about it, we went to the office of the anti-fraud unit in Lausanne. The customs officers know the case well. They spent 6 years investigating it.

00:04:16,828 Jean-Claude: -We hadn't seen this piece of gold and the bronze earring. Each object is an investigation in itself. If you have a coin, a statue, you have to define where it comes from and how it got there.

4’26 Jean-Claude Duvoisin, Deputy Head of Criminal Prosecutions, Federal Customs Office

00:04:32,593 Daniel Piquilloud: -We searched among these 30,000 objects which items had probably been smuggled in. This is a Benedictine work where you look for each photo and corresponding documents.

4’38 Daniel Piquilloud, Head of Investigations, Federal Customs Office

00:04:46,461 VO: -This work paid off: many objects were not declared. That's 4 million francs of tax recovered and 2 million in fines imposed. We're dealing with VAT fraud, but not only this. The inspectors discovered false documents. Here, an invoice with a doubtful origin. The date is important, the so-called collection dates back to the 60's. In Switzerland, only antiques from collections before 2005 can legally be sold.

00:05:18,493 Daniel: -These objects came out of the ground. When you find a mushroom, it doesn't have a document with it. It's the same for a looted antique. If we can prove that the object was already in Switzerland before 2005, it means the antique legally came into Switzerland.

00:05:39,044 VO: -To hide the traces of illicit origins, the antiques were restored by an accomplice.

00:05:44,230 Jean-Claude: -We found the workshop in a house. Right here in Geneva. When we entered, there were hundreds of chemicals, plaster, etc. In a bathtub, a bust was soaking in corrosive products.

00:06:05,836 VO: -This accomplice had his workshop in a residential area near Geneva. We would like to see how antiques are restored.

00:06:12,985 Reporter: -Swiss television, I'm looking for Mr...

00:06:15,365 VO: -On the spot, we learn that the accomplice has left the country. This man had been sentenced by the court.

00:06:23,506 Jean-Claude: -The restorer usually receives a piece of art that is in bad condition. It is rusty, oxidized, or full of dirt. Here the restorer must bring back the piece to a state similar to what it looked like 2,000 years ago.

6’28 Jean-Claude Duvoisin, Deputy Head of Criminal Prosecutions, Federal Customs Office

00:06:41,216 VO: -For the customs officers, a whole system was set up to hide the origin of certain antiques. A statement that is strongly denied by the art dealer. We met him in Geneva with his lawyer Didier Bottge. The two men castigate the customs investigation.

00:06:58,095 Didier Bottge: -The investigation was an absolute flop. Let's have a word about the means used here. There were 40 investigators for months for what resulted in mostly a VAT collection and a conviction on the result of a private deal.

7’00 Didier Bottge, Art lawyer

00:07:17,450 VO: -During the trial, Ali Aboutaam confessed to using false documents. He also turned a blind eye to the illicit origin of some antiques. To understand the value of the objects, we have an appointment with a professor of law and expert in archaeology.

00:07:39,045 Marc-André Renold: -These are not just old stones. They're part of a cultural heritage. In our societies, culture, and in the cultures concerned, culture is very important. It's a question of peoples' cultural identity.

7’49 Marc-André Renold, Professor, Director of University Centre for Art Law, Geneva

00:07:59,477 VO: -Switzerland has signed the UNESCO Convention for the protection of Cultural Property. The import of looted objects is forbidden. The repression is reinforced.

00:08:10,083 Marc-André: -The era when adventurers could get what they want to sell them is over. Indiana Jones was a hero. Today, we have created a duty of care.

00:08:25,355 VO: -The professor is fighting to return illegally imported antiques to their country of origin from Switzerland.

00:08:31,770 Marc-André: -In Iraq, Syria, laws prohibit looting, but they are far from being effective. We can't prevent illicit trafficking, so the objects end up coming to Switzerland. If we want to help, we have to seize the objects, make procedures, punish the offenders and return the stolen pieces.

00:09:03,614 VO: -After months of negotiation and our promise to not reveal the location, the customs agreed to show us the seized antiques. The value of the objects is estimated to be millions of francs.

00:09:17,019 Daniel: -The bust of Hadrian was the first piece that we saw when we opened the door to the hidden warehouse. It was in a blue bag.

00:09:27,952 Reporter: -An Ikea bag?

Daniel: -Yes, true. There were mosaics, busts.

Jean-Claude: -Bronzes.

Daniel: -Bronzes, cuirasses.

00:09:40,964 VO: -The customs officers have been working with archaeologists trying to identify the origin of the items.

00:09:47,368 Daniel: -These are mystery objects. Their story is still missing. We don't know where they come from. There is no traceability in the documents, nor by the people who extracted them from the earth.

9’55 Daniel Piquilloud, Head of Investigations, Federal Customs Office

00:10:01,175 VO: -These pieces can be found on the UNESCO red list. It lists valuable artifacts of inestimable value, highly sought after on the black market.

00:10:11,848 Reporter: -What is the monetary value of these objects?

00:10:14,233 Daniel: -For whom? The value of the object to the person who found it or to the person who bought it after it was looted out of the ground? Once it was bleached and restored, with no trace of the location where it was looted? After its story was forged, thanks to false documents, then it becomes worth millions.

00:10:34,562 VO: -With such rocketing prices, the importance of these objects on a cultural heritage level doesn't seem to matter much. At the heart of the Phoenix case is a statuette that caught the attention of the detectives: an ivory goddess of rare beauty.

00:11:01,474 Daniel: -This is a unique, authentic piece. It is believed to have recently come from the Mosul region of Iraq.

00:11:09,806 VO: -This estimate is based on the analysis of experts mandated by the customs authorities. The statuette is believed to have come from illegal excavations in Iraq.

00:11:17,344 Daniel: -This was a recent excavation. The break is still white. It was dug up very recently.

00:11:27,655 VO: -For the art dealer, the customs officers are wrong: the statuette did not come from Iraq and from no illegal excavations.

00:11:38,352 Ali: -This is wrong!

00:11:40,370 Didier: -They had assigned a ten million value to it, madness!

11’41 Ali Aboutaam, Art dealer, Geneva

00:11:44,339 Ali: -I bought a similar piece for 50,000 dollars in an auction. It was also Phoenician, just as important.

00:11:52,965 Reporter: -So according to you it came from Egypt?

Ali: -Yes, from Egypt.

00:12:00,889 VO: -Who is telling the truth about the origin of these antiques? The answer is in Iraq. We went to the north of the country, in the city of Mosul. In the desert are hidden the remains of thousand-year-old civilizations and lost spirits.

00:12:22,195 Driver: -Hide the camera, it's a checkpoint.

00:12:25,089 VO: -Armed militias control the area.

00:12:29,113 Driver: -Hide the camera!

00:12:33,820 VO: -It is difficult to imagine that our investigation on a Geneva-based art dealer would lead us to Mosul. This city is the former capital of the Islamic state. The jihadists lost its control in 2017, but they haven't vanished from the area. Suicide attacks and kidnappings are on the rise. In order to determine the origin of the antique pieces, we have an appointment with the director of Mosul's history museum. Inside the building, Islamic State have destroyed everything. They considered the place to not conform to their view of Islam.

00:13:14,316 Zaid Ghazi Saadallah: -This is very important because it's from the Assyrian king Assur-Dan II. It's a throne base. You can see the cuneiform writing. This is the story of the king. This is from the Nimrud palace.

13’22 Zaid Ghazi Saadallah, Director, Museum of Mosul, Iraq

00:13:39,519 Reporter: -Is it like a history book engraved within the stone?

00:13:42,109 Zaid: -Yes, it is.

00:13:44,241 VO: -It will take years to put this puzzle back together. These works here date back to the Assyrian Empire, a kingdom that dominated Syria, Iraq and part of Egypt.

00:13:55,862 Zaid: -This hole comes from the explosion of the bomb that the Islamic State put under the base of the throne. Come with me. Before destroying, the IS used hammers to remove the face and beard.

00:14:20,286 VO: -In propaganda videos, the jihadists show the destruction of the museum.

14’23 Source: Islamic State video, Iraq, 2015

00:14:29,505 Zaid: -When I saw these videos of the jihadists destroying these priceless works for the Iraqi heritage, I could not hold back my tears. I could not do anything at all.

00:14:46,368 VO: -In front of the cameras, the jihadists destroyed the most imposing objects. More discreetly, they resold smaller antiques on the black market. This was an important source of money for the terrorist group.

14’51 Source: Islamic State video, Iraq, 2015

00:14:59,225 Zaid: -The Islamic State destroyed these pieces to cover up the theft of antiques. They used the bombing to hide the looting.

00:15:18,972 VO: -We showed him the pictures from the customs experts. For the Swiss experts, these objects are of Iraqi origin.

00:15:25,338 Zaid: -Bring me back the little animal, please. You can see, it's the same thing.

00:15:37,896 Reporter: -Were they children's games?

00:15:40,216 Zaid: -Yes, and this is from Nimrud.

00:15:46,078 VO: -According to these archaeologists, the ivory goddess would be about 3,000 years old.

00:15:51,715 Zaid: -How tall is it?

00:15:53,926 Reporter: -Its size corresponds the size of the page: 30cm.

00:16:03,070 VO: -Almost too good to be true.

00:16:05,466 Zaid: -It's hard to tell from the picture alone. You have to touch it to determine whether it is authentic.

00:16:17,996 VO: -All these objects would come from looting, victims of treasure hunters.

00:16:23,381 Zaid: -These are signs of illegal digging.

00:16:26,456 Reporter: -Yes. So illegal digging looks like that. And this one as well?

00:16:30,402 Zaid: -Yes.

00:16:31,733 Reporter: -So all these objects come from illegal excavations?

00:16:36,073 VO: -If these came from official excavations, they would have been photographed, then meticulously cleaned.

00:16:43,280 Zaid: -You have to make a report with the information, you sign, with the date.

00:16:50,610 Reporter: -Do you have to clean them?

00:16:52,163 Zaid: -Yes, then we put them in storage.

00:17:02,584 VO: -We head off to the illegal excavation sites. Several objects, including the ivory goddess would come from Nimrud. An archaeologist accompanies us.

00:17:13,077 Mustafa Yahya Faraj: -This is the complex of the temples and palaces of Nimrud. This is the heart of the Assyrian Empire.

00:17:30,376 VO: -For a long time, tourists have not been allowed to visit Nimrud. It was one of the most beautiful historic sites of the country.

00:17:40,096 Mustafa: -We are in the throne room of the of the king.

00:17:44,265 Reporter: -Everything is destroyed?

00:17:45,713 Mustafa: -Everything was destroyed. This is a huge disaster, it was like the city of Athens.

00:17:56,525 VO: -It's hard to imagine that the site looked like this. This footage shot before the war shows the grandeur of the palace.

18’04 Source: Nimroud video, UNESCO

00:18:05,501 Mustafa: -On this video, you can see a Lamassu.

00:18:10,521 Reporter: -What is the meaning of the Lamassu?

00:18:12,810 Mustafa: -The Lamassus are angels protecting the people and the Assyrian king from their enemies. Only this part remains, all the rest has been destroyed.

00:18:24,090 VO: -Doctor Mustafa Iha Faraj has been studying the site for years. For him, a characteristic of the place, is the ivory objects, offerings brought to Nimrud, once the capital of the whole empire.

00:18:39,761 Mustafa: -The link between this statuette and Nimrud is clear. Out of the whole Middle East, it is here in Nimrud that archaeologists have discovered most of the ivory objects from this period. Archaeologists have discovered 3 types of ivory objects in Nimrud. The first type of ivory object is of Egyptian style. The second is of Phoenician and Syrian type and the last type of objects is purely Assyrian.

18’46 Mustafa Yahya Faraj, Archaeologist, Iraq

00:19:08,145 VO: -These statements confirm the Swiss experts' estimates. Now we need to find the tomb raiders. For the local police chief, the culprit is obvious.

00:19:19,505 Mohammed Rayyan: -This is the Islamic State. Before, the police used to protect all this quite well.

19’22 Mohammed Rayyan, Head of Police, Ninawa province, Iraq

00:19:27,210 VO: -Ali works as an assistant for the archaeologists. He saw men looting the site during the Islamic State. Under duress, some villagers had to help.

00:19:36,522 Ali: -The Islamic state did not dig directly on the site of the Nimrud palaces. We didn't see them digging here. They bulldozed everything. On the secondary sites, they did much looting. There are 90 secondary sites in the surrounding villages. Tunnels have been dug to recover precious objects.

00:20:03,489 VO: -These tunnels were not only from the Islamic State. The resale of any object, even for hundreds of dollars, has been attracting treasure hunters for a long time. In Erbil, Kurdistan, a journalist investigated these grave robbers. Dilan Sirwan works for Rudaw, a media outlet in Iraq.

00:20:34,431 Dilan Sirwan: Oftentimes these are farmers, these are villagers, these are people who do a daily profession on those lands. They find something, and if they get away with it, they manage to resell it. So these things may have been sold through different hands several times. I don’t think it was specific during ISIS’s time, because we know for a fact that a lot of artefacts were stolen. If we are talking about digging per se, perhaps the time of ISIS was the most renowned for digging up artefacts and then reselling them or taking them abroad. But essentially, when it comes to stealing, this has been going on for the past 20 years or something.

21’01 Dilan Sirwan, Journalist, Rudaw Kurdistan, Iraq

00:21:19,615 VO: -To reach Switzerland, the objects left the country by the road.

00:21:24,153 Dilan: There are probably over 5 illegal border crossings. These border crossings… I mean that’s essentially where drugs get imported into the country, drugs get exported, and other smuggled goods. So, I don’t think for artefacts it’s any different. Essentially if it happened during ISIS, that would mean it went from Mosul to Syria, from Syria to Lebanon, and probably from Lebanon to the rest of the world.

00:22:02,236 VO: -Back in Switzerland, we have new evidence. They attest to the illicit nature of certain artifacts of the Geneva-based art dealer. The Iraqi artifacts were not registered anywhere and have not been properly cleaned. Moreover, ivory artifacts are characteristic of Nimrud, a region that was heavily plundered in recent years.

00:22:21,723 Didier: -We are absolutely against the excavation in areas of conflict or destruction areas, which are even worse. In terms of the law, it was not established that there was an illegal excavation site or an unlawful search. For this, it would have been necessary to prove that an object had been removed at a specific place, at a specific time, in specific circumstances. This has not been proven.

22’41 Didier Bottge, Art lawyer

00:22:55,993 Reporter: -But we can determine that some artifacts came from Iraq.

00:23:00,305 Didier: -No, no, nobody... Someone will say it, but someone else will say the opposite.

00:23:06,154 Reporter: -Where do these objects come from then? Those that the customs officers say come from Iraq and Syria? Where do they come from?

00:23:15,948 Ali Aboutaam: -They come largely from my family collection.

00:23:20,094 Reporter: -Some objects have marks of illegal excavation.

00:23:24,688 Ali: -Soil marks, yes.

00:23:26,242 Reporter: -What do you think?

00:23:27,927 Ali: -There's soil everywhere.

00:23:29,713 Didier: -Look at this amphora, it is covered with soil. Does it come from an illicit excavation?

00:23:36,290 Ali: -I was lucky to acquire some objects from a French collection from 1875 and 1890 and the objects have traces of soil.

00:23:51,896 Reporter: -You are questioning the fact that...

00:23:54,090 Ali: -We didn't touch the objects, it was part of the aesthetics.

00:23:59,610 VO: -The aesthetics does not eclipse the decision of justice though. The art dealer was found guilty of an offence against the law on the transfer of cultural property. A hundred pieces have been confiscated. These objects cursed by their beauty will return to their country of origin. They will go back to where they belong in world heritage.

24’27 Credits:

François Ruchti
Emmanuelle Eraers
Stéphane Saporito
Marc Zumbach
Laurent Egli
Briag Bouquot
Olivier Larue
Bernard Seidler
Patrick Blache
Stéphane Friedli
Renée-Jeanne Acquaviva
François Torche
Pierre Bader