Caveat Vendor

If we are to believe what we read in Al Ahram (Nevine El-Aref, 'Stolen Egyptian artefacts rescued from Christie's auction', Al Ahram, 2 May 2013 [ link broken, rewritten as: 'Exclusive: Britain's largest seize of stolen artefacts since Egypt's revolution', Sunday 5 May 2013] and Anon [Ahram Online], 'Britain's Egyptian antiquities investigation: Main suspect bailed', Ahram online 10 May 2013) you need to be careful what you take along to a certain London auction house to flog off, you may get more than you bargain for.

A British collector found this out the hard way, the auction house was offering six of his items. They were sold as from "Private collection, UK, acquired Egypt 1940s; thence by descent to the present owner". Now, one presumes the august and highly-respected institution had checked that out before they put them in the catalogue. But then it turned out that the man "who claimed ownership of the five objects did not have any documents that prove his ownership". So, it seems Christie's shopped him. The man was arrested and has already spent several days in jail. Al Ahram newspaper quotes Christie's:

Christie's expects this case will show that there should not be tolerance with this kind of illegitimate trade. ”We hope that this case - and the consequences - will send a strong message to those engaged in the illicit trade," Christie's Director of Communications Matthew Paton told Ahram Online. Paton also praised the British Museum for "its crucial role in identifying the stolen antiquities".

Caveat vendor. One other thing puzzling in this case, in the article of 5th May, we learn that "Christie's experts, the British museum's Egyptology department, the Egyptian embassy in London and the Art Loss Register worked closely for weeks to identify six stolen objects". If the objects were included in the Art Loss register, what were they doing being accepted for sale at Christies in the first place? Could Christie's clarify the sequence of events here? 

Sources: 

Anon [Ahram Online], 'Exclusive: Britain's largest seize of stolen artefacts since Egypt's revolution',

Ahram Online,  Sunday 5 May 2013

Anon [Ahram Online], 'Britain's Egyptian antiquities investigation: Main suspect bailed', Ahram online 10 May 2013.