Turkish Government Officials Complicit in Theft of More Than 200 Artworks From State Museums
by Alexander Forbes
Published: August 7, 2012
More than 200 art works have disappeared from Turkey’s State Art and Sculpture Museum, located in the capital, Ankara, according to a report published by the government’s Culture and Tourism ministry, and uncovered by daily paper the Milliyet on Tuesday. It appears that both paintings and sculptures were swapped for forged replicas over a series of years by a crafty ring of criminals and government officials. The ministry attempted and temporarily succeeded in keeping the report secret, presumably due to the enormous scale of the operation, which reveals unsightly details of the lack of oversight within the Turkish government regarding national artifacts as well as blatant illegal acts by government officials themselves.
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