Mike Ives, 'Myanmar Buddha sculpture returns home after wild ride', The Christian Science Monitor November 3, 2013
In 1989, four ancient sculptures were taken from a pagoda near Bagan, a city in central Myanmar known for its 11th-century religious structures and artifacts. One of the sculptures was imported into the USA in 1990 by a San Francisco-based art dealer. It was later seized by the FBI in New York City, exhibited at a university in Illinois for several years, and in 2012 sent to Paris at the order of Myanmar's ambassador to France. It recently returned to Myanmar.
It was smuggled out of the country, then known as Burma, in violation of Burmese law and without an export permit, according to an account written by James C. Daulton, the lawyer who represented the Myanmar government in a 1994 civil suit against a San Francisco art dealer, Richard K. Diran. Mr. Diran, who brought the sculpture to the United states in 1990, consigned it for an auction scheduled for October 1991, court documents show. But he relinquished his claim after the FBI impounded the sculpture and brought a civil suit against him. "The victory thus provides a disincentive to would-be participants in the illegal trade in south and southeast Asian antiquities," Mr. Daulton wrote after the sculpture was recovered. In 1995, the sculpture was transferred to Northern Illinois University for safekeeping because Myanmar's political situation at the time was far from stable, and it was unclear whether the sculpture would fall into safe hands upon its return, says Raymond, who directs the university's centre for Burma studies.[...] Last November, after stopping for a few weeks in Paris, the sculpture arrived at Myanmar's national museum.
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