 . However, there is no suggestion that Ms White, nor her late husband, were aware that the items had been stolen before the pair purchased them. Investigators working on the case launched a dawn raid on Ms White's Manhattan apartment in June 2021. Trafficking They found rooms laden with artefacts some of which, it emerged, had been bought from dealers who were later accused of trafficking in stolen items. Investigators later said she had co-operated with their work and assisted in returning the items to their countries of origin, which include Turkey and Italy. 'Our investigation into the collector Shelby White has allowed dozens of antiquities that were ripped from their countries of origin to finally return home,' Mr Bragg said in April as he announced the return of three of the antiquities, valued at $725,000, to Yemen. Peter Chavkin, Ms White's lawyer, said in a statement she and her late husband had acquired the objects 'in good faith, at public auction and from dealers they believed to be reputable'. 'From the outset of their collecting, Shelby White and Leon Levy sought to share these treasures with the public, loaning objects to museums and publishing their collection extensively,' he said. 'If an item in her collection was shown to have been wrongfully taken by ot){kind=link}
Treasures worth tens of millions of dollars ‘ripped from their countries of origin’ found at Manhattan flat of philanthropist
Scores of looted artefacts worth tens of millions of dollars have been recovered from the home of a prominent trustee of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, it has emerged.
Shelby White, 84, had amassed the collection with her late husband, Leon Levy, a Wall Street investor and philanthropist who died in 2003.
But following a lengthy investigation ordered by Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan District Attorney, 71 items have been taken from her home over the past two years, the New York Times reported.
Another 17 have been removed from the Met itself, where they were on loan. One other item was at a third undisclosed location.