Its great to see that Switzerland is finally doing something to clear up the murky world of artefacts smuggled via the Free Port in Geneva.

An Etruscan sarcophagus is among stolen ancient artworks that Switzerland has returned to Italy

From:
The Local (Switzerland)

Switzerland returns looted Etruscan treasures to Italy
Published: 14 Jan 2016 16:18 GMT+01:00

Switzerland has returned to Italy 45 boxes of ancient Etruscan art stolen during illegal excavations and stashed away for more than 15 years, including two rare sarcophaguses, authorities said on Thursday.

“The antiques were given back to Italian authorities today,” a statement from Geneva’s public prosecutor’s office said.
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Many people in the past have told me that Geneva is the global hub for looted artefacts. Cases such as those involving Giacomo Medici only emphasise this fact.

The notion of the city as the ideal point of transfer for art deals taking place, well away from the public eye is exacerbated by the existence of free ports, which store artefacts, often purely for investment purposes – that will never see the light of day until they are maybe re-sold at some point in the future.

From:
BBC News

2 January 2013 Last updated at 00:52
Geneva’s art storage boom in uncertain times
By Imogen Foulkes BBC News, Geneva

It may contain a treasure trove of Picassos but few have ever explored the riches in the Geneva free port art storage site.

In difficult economic times, investors are turning to more unusual commodities to protect their money. Gold may be a tried and tested safe haven, but in recent years fine art has been attracting increasing amounts of cash.
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More coverage of the Wikiloot project – looking at the current problems of looting of ancient artefacts – and how some of the big networks involved in the illegal trafficking have been broken up because of chance discoveries.

From:
Swiss Info

Jul 18, 2012 – 11:00
Closing in on the archaeological underworld
by Michèle Laird, swissinfo.ch

Switzerland has been cleaning up its free ports after a 1995 scandal on its home turf triggered a probe into looted antiquities. Globally, the fight to disrupt such criminal activity is stepping up with a Web experiment to share information.

Museums the world over still display archaeological treasures that sometimes are not legally theirs. While governments wrangle over their rightful ownership, looters continue to plunder sites to feed a prospering black-market.
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At first I thought I was reading an older story – but it appears that there is another auction of artefacts that are now suspected to have been through the warehouses of Giacomo Medici.

From:
The Art Newspaper

Medici “loot” for sale?
Two works coming to auction with Bonhams appear similar to those pictured in Polaroids found in the convicted dealer’s Geneva store
By Fabio Isman and Melanie Gerlis | From issue 217, October 2010
Published online 5 Oct 10 (market)

Bonhams London is to auction two antiquities that may have passed through the hands of the dealer Giacomo Medici, who has twice been found guilty of trafficking in antiquities in Italy, but is free as he mounts his third and final appeal. As we went to press, the auction house had not withdrawn the lots because the necessary information on the items had not been released, despite Bonhams’ repeated requests to the Italian authorities, they say.

Pictures in the Bonhams catalogue of the two works coming to auction on 6 October appear similar to Polaroids found in Medici’s Geneva store, which were seized in 1995 and presented as evidence during his trials, although these particular objects were never examined in court. This means that the objects have not been studied to establish their origins and whether or not they were illegally excavated or exported and may be legitimate.
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Bernard Tschumi, the architect who designed the New Acropolis Museum will be a keynote speaker at the annual Latsis University Prizes Ceremony at the University of Geneva.

He is giving this talk at 18:00 on Monday 5th October.