Due Diligence "Thwarts Plot"

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Hooray for Christie's! They announce that their Dubai office have "alerted authorities" after several items were submitted to them for inclusion in sales (Colin Simpson, 'Christie's thwarts plot to sell Libyan antiquities for Dubai auction', The National [UAE] Oct 22, 2012).  They thereby stress to potential buyers out there in the Gulf region that they have "rigorous procedures to detect stolen or forged items". So while a bunch of vengeful foreign interventionists was trying to bomb Gaddafi's Libya into the Stone Age to put a government of murderous thugs in power, Christie's say "thousands of priceless artefacts were looted during the battle". That's not what we were being told by the pro-war propagandists at the time, is it?

"When Libya was having trouble as a consequence of the Arab Spring and the downfall of Qaddafi, works from Libyan museums came onto the international art market within a very short period of time," said Paul Hewitt, Christie's managing director for growth markets. "But they are conspicuous and high-profile therefore we are alert to them, and we absolutely do not touch them. We refuse them instantly and moreover we alert the authorities that we have been offered something, and then they take it into their hands".

Note the careful lack of details: what was recognised and how, what was offered, when it was offered ("within a short time" of what?) and by whom? What kind of "plot" was involved? Also missing is any mention of which "authorities" were alerted, Gaddafi's government, the US-backed NTC, UAE authorities, Interpol? When these unnamed authorities "took it into their hands", were the objects retrieved and where are they now? Were the smugglers caught and where are they now? Note that the discovery of the dodgy antiquities is attributed to them being objects which were "conspicuous" in their nature and not because any paper trail was being investigated. But hooray for Christie's ("the global art market is booming [come and spend money with confidence at our next art sale in Dubai tomorrow and Wednesday at the Emirates Towers hotel]").

Vignette: the Emirates Towers hotel does not like you using its photos (it's a chunky, spiky, ugly bigger-than-yours building with one of those idiot-show-off-holes-in-the-side), so instead here is a camel (Gordon670).

UPDATE 25th October 2012:
Christie's have denied that there was any truth in this story (Tom Westcott, 'No Libyan artefacts intercepted by Dubai auction house', Libya Herald 24 October 2012).The same article also  notes that apart from the still-missing so-called Benghazi Treasure:

a sackful of Roman antiquities was recovered last year when a convoy of forces loyal to Qaddafi were intercepted heading south from Tripoli. The cache included 17 stone heads as well as terracotta fragments. These were later put on display in Tripoli.

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