Looted, Forged, And Sold: The Hidden Side of the Art World

How stolen art ends up at the world's top auction houses, and the lawyer who has spent her career getting it back. The art world has a theft problem most people never see. Leila Amineddoleh is the foremost lawyer in art repatriation and cultural heritage law, and she has spent her career tracking down looted antiquities, fighting for countries trying to reclaim their stolen history, and exposing the forgeries hiding in plain sight across major collections. In this episode, Mary and Leila get into how ancient artifacts move from archaeological sites to auction houses to museum walls with almost no one asking questions, the landmark case where Leila represented Greece against Sotheby's, why forgeries are far more common than the art world wants to admit, the $34.99 Goodwill bust that turned out to belong to Germany, and the centuries-old debate over who the Parthenon Marbles really belong to. Subscribe for new episodes every week. Chapters: 00:00 Why Art Matters 00:28 Meet Leila Amineddoleh 01:17 The Iraq Museum Looting And How She Got Here 03:17 When Destroying Culture Is Terrorism 06:29 The Parthenon Marbles Explained 10:20 How Greece Sued Sotheby's And Won 17:41 Spotting Fakes And Forgeries 24:46 When Does Something Become A Forgery? 27:15 The $34.99 Goodwill Bust That Belonged To Germany 37:03 Looted Art Is A Bad Investment 40:34 Colonial Returns And The Benin Bronzes Follow Mary Childs on social media: X: https://x.com/mdc?lang=en Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/maryinameri... LinkedIn:   / marychilds   TikTok:   / maryinamerica   Follow our show: X: https://x.com/maryinamerica Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/maryinameri... #Podcast #ArtRepatriation #StolenArt