The FBI is investigating the sale of hundreds of items on eBay suspected to be stolen and missing artifacts from the British Museum, according to a new report published by BBC News.
The law enforcement agency assisted the Metropolitan Police with the recent return of 268 items from a collector in Washington, D.C. The FBI also contacted a buyer in New Orleans via email about two items purchased on eBay.
The email from the FBI agent said they were assisting the Metropolitan Police in its investigation of the British Museum’s missing, stolen, and damaged items. The buyer, Tonio Birbiglia, told the BBC that he bought the two gems from the same eBay account later identified by whistleblower Ittai Gradel as selling items from the British Museum’s collection for as little as $51.
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Birbiglia told the BBC that he paid £42 for an amethyst gem depicting Cupid in May 2016, and later purchased an orange scarab-beetle gem for £170.
The BBC reported that neither the FBI, the British Museum, nor British police requested further information from Birbiglia, and he is no longer in possession of these items.
The British Museum announced last August that ancient gems, jewelry, and other items from its collection were missing or damaged. Many of the items had not been cataloged or photographed by the museum.
The institution’s press release did not mention the name of the staffer who was fired, but the individual was soon identified by media as senior curator Peter Higgs. The museum is currently suing Higgs in a civil case. According to court documents, the British Museum alleges the thefts from its storerooms took place over a decade, and sales of the ancient gems to “at least” 45 buyers generated an estimated £100,000 in total.
Higgs has not been charged or arrested, and his family has denied the allegations.
The impact of the thefts at the British Museum has been immense, with resignations, testimonies at parliamentary committees, an independent review, as well as renewed calls for the repatriation of high-profile items: they include director Hartwig Fischer‘s having immediately stepped down instead of departing early in 2024 as was previously announced; the subsequent departure of deputy director Jonathan Williams; the independent review’s 36 recommendations for the museum’s security, governance, and record-keeping operations; as well as plans for a complete documentation of the museum’s collection in five years at a cost of $12.1 million.
The lack of cataloging of the museum’s collection also prompted the creation of a web page requesting the public’s assistance in locating some of the missing and stolen items. The BBC also reported that in some cases, collectors have agreed to donate items to the British Museum so that staff can assess if they came from its collection.
Of the 1,500 missing, stolen, and damaged items, the Museum announced earlier this month it had recovered 626 pieces, and located 100 more that had not yet returned to the institution.
The British Museum did not respond to a request for comment from ARTnews. The FBI cited “longstanding DOJ policy” and wrote in an email to ARTnews “the FBI neither confirms nor denies an investigation and has no further comment.”