The hunt for Cambodia's stolen Khmer jewels

60 minutes overtime this week on 60 Minutes we're doing a story about the Looting of Cambodian Antiquities over decades by armies of looters many of them former camaru Child soldiers and where these looted Antiquities ended up which is in some of the most prestigious museums around the world this is a massive art Heist massive over decades yes Brad Gordon is an American attorney who's been working for the last 10 years for the Cambodian government trying to track down all the stolen Treasures of the country and and get them back one of the places we went with Brad Gordon and his team of investigators and some former looters uh was a temple on sunduk Mountain I mean it's like something out of you know an Indiana Jones film it's a a crumbled temple in a forest it's overgrown and you see essentially a graveyard of pedestals some of them have feet still attached to them Stone feet where a statue once stood the scholars are trying to figure out in the archaist why here why you know these inscriptions talk about an enormous amount of gold being brought as gifts for the temple so we know that this site is something very very important one of the big breaks for Brad Gordon and his team of investigators was when they met a man who they named lion they gave him a code name for his own safety lion was a former cimu Child Soldier who then became a looter and had a great memory according to Brad Gordon for what he had stolen where he found it what condition he found it in how he dug it out and where it ended up going and I sent to him what did you find in this area and he said well I found a jar I found a jar of 3 kilos of jewelry and it was um necklaces and earrings and crowns and I said to him did you just find one jar and he said no he found hundreds and it's not 100% clear exactly whose gold this was but Brad Gordon is pretty confident that it may be the the jewels that once belonged to the kings and queens in what was an ancient Chim Empire that existed for hundreds of years Douglas latchford was a British collector he was also the prime mover of stolen Treasures out of Cambodia Douglas lford published three books they were sort of coffee table books with beautiful photographs of of the most extraordinary Treasures from Cambodia many of which many cambodians had never seen before and we took those books to Anor watad with Brad Gordon and one of his investigators and you can look at the reliefs that show images of ancient chimra Kings from this ancient chimra empire and you can see what looks very similar if not exactly those same Jewels so this would think is that the crown the crown and this is the armlet the arm the arm band yeah armband and then these earrings the earrings and you see even the oh I see the cross cross here oh going across this chest yes wow and lion was able to use that book in particular that Douglas latchford had published and point specifically to necklaces and other gold pieces that he himself had had taken out of the ground from sandok Mountain the first day I met him I show it Tim and he was he was shocked he hadn't seen it before he hadn't seen it before and he kept you know opening the book and going back to the front cover and going through and tapping and saying I know this one I know this one I know this one prosecutors in New York got involved in the illegal tradeit of Cambodian Antiquities and they built a case over years against Douglas lashford he died before he could be extradited from Thailand to face trial Brad Gordon approached Douglas latchfords daughter and over time convinced her that it was critical that she returned the stolen Treasures of Cambodia that her father had had taken the family of Douglas latchford was claiming he bought these legally in a store in Bangkok somewhere yes and I think if I didn't have Lion's information I wouldn't have been even to have that conversation it ended up where Brad Gordon went to England where Julia lashford lives and met her in a pub and then after lunch Julia is like come with me we went out to the parking lot and she opened the back of the car and there were four boxes there um which contained the ancorian crown jewels and the back in the back of a car trunk of a car trunk of a car and she opened up the boxes and she took out the Rings she took out the earrings I just was stunned and I just felt like wow unbelievable that it's sitting here in a parking lot in a deal with the Cambodian government lashford family agreed to return his entire collection including the golden jewelry the return of these Antiquities is incredibly important to many cambodians and the return of these Jewels was a major event in Cambodia there was a huge ceremon uh in panom pen in the capital we were in attendance and there was a celebration for the return of these incredibly important jewels that cambodians would get to see for the first time in their lives a lot of the cambodians I work with have said to me they heard about this type of golden fairy tales they heard about it maybe from their grandparents but they didn't believe it now they see it they're like wow what do you think this means to Cambodia I think it's restoration of national pride

Channel: 60 Minutes

Views: 57,775

Keywords: 60 Minutes, CBS News, Cambodia, jewels, Khmer Jewels, plundering, ancient artifacts

Id: Ze85HK94DBY

Length: 6min 9sec (369 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 17 2023