London dealer Grebkest and Runn was found out by a vigilent archaeologist who caught them red-handed handling another stolen and illegally smuggled antiquity, a relief with the cartouch of King Amenhotep I, which has now been seized, the dealers have been detained by the UK police for questioning and face deportation to Egypt to answer charges of maintaining contacts with and financing organized criminal groups (
Nevine El-Aref, '
A relief of king Amenhotep I recovered from London' Al-Ahram
Friday 21 Sep 2018 )
The relief was first noticed by a foreign archaeologist a few months ago, when it was put on sale in an auction hall in London.
Gawad said the archaeologist realised that the relief is the same one that was stolen in 1988 from the open-air museum in Karnak Temple Complex in Luxor [...] then promptly reported the incident to the Ministry of Antiquities. The ministry then took all necessary legal and diplomatic procedures to stop the sale of the relief, and return it to Egypt.
UPDATE: I have just been informed that the information about the name of the dealers is fake news, the identity of the people that were handling this item no-questions-asked has in fact not been released to the public. I am also told that nobody has been even detained for questioning to establish the guilty parties. Business goes on in London as usual.
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