NEW YORK, NY – The United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York announced today the filing of a civil complaint seeking forfeiture of various World War I-era documents, letters, and photographs for the purpose of returning the antiquities to the American university from which they were stolen.
The University’s important historical research was undercut by the alleged theft and illegal smuggling of these antiquities abroad.
The recovered items include the 1919 diary of General Nikolai Iudenitch, a commander of the Russian Imperial Army during World War I. The case emphasizes the importance of preserving historical artifacts and the dedication of law enforcement agencies to recovering stolen antiquities.
According to the complaint, “The United States seeks the forfeiture of documentary materials, relating primarily to the 1917 Russian Revolution and World War I Russian military personnel, that were stolen from a university located in New York, New York (the “University”). The stolen materials included the 1919 diary of General Nikolai Iudenitch, a commander of the Russian Imperial Army during World War I, along with other documents, correspondence, and photographs that had been sent to an auction house located in Paris, France, (the “Auction House”) for inclusion in an April 2018 auction of Russian documents and books. The Auction House was not provided with any certificate of authenticity or proof as to the provenance of the materials. After a curator employed by the University recognized the items in a catalog published by the Auction House, the stolen materials were seized by law enforcement. “