THE ARCHIVE BY COUNTRY
Published reports from our archive, newest first.
A country may refer to the theft, recovery, return or legal proceedings. A case can be linked to more than one country.
8 reports
Western New Mexico University Police announced on 9 November that all objects stolen from the university museum had been recovered intact. The Silver City Daily Press identified them as four Mimbres ceramic vessels from Elk Ridge pueblo. Police said the investigation was ongoing and charges were expected. Documentary photo of the damaged museum window: Raleigh Burleigh / Silver City Daily Press.
N+ reports that a judge ordered criminal proceedings against Ricardo N on 3 November over an alleged 25-million-peso art-sale fraud. Prosecutors say false property documents secured the unpaid purchase of two paintings attributed to Frida Kahlo and David Alfaro Siqueiros. The defendant remains in pretrial detention, with one month allowed for further investigation. No conviction, recovery or determination that the paintings are forged is reported.
Documentary image: FBI. Image source ↗
The FBI returned a page signed by Cortés in 1527 to Mexico on 13 August 2025. The page had been missing from the Mexican national archives, which requested the FBI’s help in 2024.
Victor Higgins, Aspens, c.1932. UNM Harwood Museum of Art / FBI. Image source ↗
The FBI announced that Victor Higgins’s Aspens and Joseph Henry Sharp’s Oklahoma Cheyenne were returned to Harwood Museum on 12 May 2025. Stolen in 1985, the works were publicly unveiled in June. The announcement did not report a conviction for the theft.
Manhattan prosecutors returned 30 antiquities at a ceremony with Mexico’s acting consul general and Homeland Security Investigations. The turtle pictured was among the objects featured by prosecutors. Image: Manhattan District Attorney’s Office.
Monumento 9 from Chalcatzingo, the returned Olmec relief. INAH. Image source ↗
Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History documented the return of Monumento 9 from Chalcatzingo, known as a portal to the underworld and the Earth Monster. The Olmec stone relief was handed over in Denver on 19 May 2023 and arrived in Mexico that evening. The July article describes a completed restitution, not a new theft.
Angel Pereda charged over purported Basquiat and Haring forgeries — artwork or case documentation from the linked image source. Image source ↗
Federal prosecutors announced Pereda’s arrest over alleged offers of forged artworks and false provenance records. This July 2021 release records accusations, not a conviction; it includes photographs of the disputed objects.
Mexico’s INAH received an eighteenth-century painting depicting Adam and Eve expelled from Eden. The work had been stolen in 2000 from a church in Hidalgo and acquired by the San Diego Museum of Art. Photo of the returned painting: INAH, via La Jornada.
