Chasing the Man Who Stole The Gods

Summary

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Bloomberg Businessweek

Episode: Chasing the Man Who Stole The Gods

Date: May 28, 2026
Hosts: Carol Massar & Tim Stenovec
Featured Guest: Matthew Campbell, Bloomberg Businessweek reporter, author of The Man Who Stole the Gods

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Episode Overview

This episode explores the thrilling true story behind The Man Who Stole the Gods, the new book by Matthew Campbell. The podcast delves into the world of art looting, specifically the industrial-scale theft and trafficking of Cambodian cultural treasures during the 20th century. Hosts Carol Massar and Tim Stenovec sit down with Campbell to uncover the rise and fall of Douglas Latchford, a British art dealer connected to the illicit trade of Khmer Empire artifacts, and examine the legal, ethical, and cultural battles for their restitution.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Genesis of the Story & Douglas Latchford's Role

• Backdrop: The looting scandal is set against the Cold War era in Southeast Asia, highlighting how stolen cultural artifacts from Cambodia ended up in elite Western collections and museums.
• Main Character:
  • Douglas Latchford: British art dealer, pivotal in trafficking Khmer art into Western markets ([02:09]).
  • Described as "the foremost dealer of art from Cambodia in the world, selling huge volumes of what turned out to be stolen artworks into wealthy people in the US and museums" (Matthew Campbell, [02:09]).

2. The Art and Its Origins

• Artifacts: Statues and treasures from the ancient Khmer Empire (builders of Angkor Wat), dating back 1,000 years ([03:46]).
• Scale of Loss: Temples now stand empty—"All cleaned out. People think it was taken by the French, which is a little bit true, but actually the really industrial scale looting was much later, 80s and 90s" (Matthew Campbell, [04:15]).

3. The Mechanics of Looting

• Who and How:
  • Bands of looters, often with ties to the Khmer Rouge, used everything from chisels to dynamite to extract artifacts ([04:30]).
  • Looted items were routed via Thailand (Bangkok) to Western markets.
• Motivation: Demand from wealthy collectors turned these pieces into status symbols.

4. Political and Economic Drivers

• Civil War Context: Cambodia’s decades-long civil war (1968-1998) fueled the trade. Stealing artifacts became one of three main war economies (the others: timber and gemstones) ([05:16]).

5. The Hunter: Brad Gordon

• Brad Gordon's Role:
  • An American lawyer hired by the Cambodian government to investigate historical looting.
  • Became obsessed with tracking down and securing the return of lost artifacts.
  • Instrumental in many successful restitutions, often collaborating with US law enforcement ([05:49]).

6. Return Movement and Cultural Reawakening

• There’s a renewed drive—especially among a new generation of Cambodians—to reclaim cultural heritage.
• Meaning at Home: Restored artifacts serve as objects of living religious devotion, not just museum pieces ([06:47]):
  • “Cambodians, these are part of a living religious culture. A lot of Cambodians, when they see them, will start praying or they will bow or they will leave little offerings… in some cases they're leaving offerings at pieces that were literally in like Penthouses in Miami until a few short years ago.” (Matthew Campbell, [06:47])

7. The Legal and Ethical Landscape

• US Law: The National Stolen Property Act governs restitution but applying it to ancient artifacts is complex.
• Provenance: Countries must prove the object’s origins align with today’s borders, which can require creative detective work (e.g., matching broken feet from sites to statues found abroad) ([08:08]-[09:09]).

8. Shifting Cultural Ethics and Accountability

• The old colonial defense that Western museums are better caretakers is increasingly challenged as source countries invest in their own museums and cultural infrastructure ([09:45]).
• These debates are always political—“artifacts in some way or another always a little bit political” ([09:45]).

9. Prominent Collectors

• Notable Americans named in the book:
  • Leon Black (financier)
  • Jim Clark (co-founder of Netscape)
  • The Lindemann family (George Lindemann noted for being identified via Architectural Digest)
  • The Metropolitan Museum of Art amassed a significant collection ([10:31]).

10. The Reporting Process

• Campbell spent considerable time traveling between Cambodia, Bangkok, and New York, poring over legal documents and the late Latchford’s correspondence to unravel the story ([11:12]).
• “A lot of travel. I was in and out of Cambodia probably a dozen times. A lot to Bangkok… a few times to New York. And also there's a huge documentary record through the legal process in the US... Douglas Latchford… died in 2020 and a lot of his correspondence is now accessible.” (Matthew Campbell, [11:12])

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the desirability of Khmer artifacts:
  “These were trophy pieces that wealthy people here in New York, in Palm Beach, in other kind of centers of American financial achievement wanted.”
  —Matthew Campbell ([03:18])

• On today’s Cambodian connection to artifacts:
  “These are part of a living religious culture... in some cases they're leaving offerings at pieces that were literally in like Penthouses in Miami until a few short years ago.”
  —Matthew Campbell ([06:47])

• On proving provenance:
  “In the case of a lot of the Cambodian pieces, you could prove that because ultimately archaeologists found the exact spots where these things were taken from by, for example, matching broken feet to statues that arrived in Manhattan without their feet.”
  —Matthew Campbell ([08:50])

• On the ethics of Western museum claims:
  “The excuse you often hear or the argument you often hear is these pieces are better off wherever it is in the Met, in the British Museum, than they are in their home countries... but it’s not true forever. And when things change, that argument melts away.”
  —Matthew Campbell ([09:45])

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Timestamps for Major Segments

• [01:57] Introduction to Matthew Campbell & topic
• [02:09] Who is Douglas Latchford and the art he trafficked
• [03:46] Description of the art and its significance
• [04:27] Mechanics of looting: from bandits to the global market
• [05:16] Political context: war, funding, and government complicity
• [05:49] Brad Gordon’s quest for repatriation
• [06:47] Meaning of the art for modern Cambodians and the cultural revival
• [08:08] Legal frameworks: how restitution works in the US
• [09:09] The Western “guardian” argument and its unraveling
• [10:31] Notable collectors and tracing the looted art
• [11:12] Campbell’s reporting & investigative process

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Tone and Style

The episode is fast-paced, engaging, and accessible, blending investigative journalism with enthusiastic and sometimes incredulous commentary from the hosts. The discussion weaves together elements of true crime, global intrigue, legal drama, and cultural diplomacy.

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Conclusion

Matthew Campbell’s reporting and new book shed light on a clandestine world where ancient gods were trafficked for profit and prestige, but also on a global reckoning as nations seek to reclaim what was lost. The episode gives listeners a window into both the mechanics of looting and the emotional, cultural, and legal work involved in repairing longstanding injustices.

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Transcript

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[Bloomberg Host Carol Massar]

You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with

[Bloomberg Host Tim Stenovec]

Carol Massar and Tim Stenovec on Bloomberg Radio.

[Bloomberg Host]

Our amazing colleague is here. Matthew, thank you so much for coming on. It's a great title. Matthew Campbell it is the man who Stole the Gods. Who is the man? What did he steal? And how did you get turned onto this story?

[Matthew Campbell]

So this is a stolen art caper that unfolds against the backdrop of basically the Cold War in Asia. And a lot of the products of all this stealing ended up here in New York City, just a short distance up Park Avenue from where we're sitting right now. And basically the man who stole the gods was a British art dealer, Douglas Latchford, who was the foremost dealer of art from Cambodia in the world, selling huge volumes of what turned out to be stolen artworks into wealthy people in the US and museums.

[The Hartford Representative]

Here.

[Bloomberg Host Carol Massar]

It's got an incredible cast of characters. It's a new book, it's called the man who Stole the Gods. It comes out next week, but we can pre order it now and we can read an excerpt that we're referring to on the Bloomberg terminal [e-mail] it is today's big take. It's one of the most read stories on the terminal. The thing that I think is so relevant for the Bloomberg audience is that immediately, at least in this excerpt, you're drawn into sort of modern times like Christie's and Sotheby's take center stage again, at least in this excerpt because, you know, in the last decade plus, they were involved in selling at least the work that is focused on in this part of the book.

[Matthew Campbell]

These were trophy pieces that wealthy people here in New York, in Palm beach, in other kind of centers of American financial achievement wanted. We actually just found out from the Epstein files that Leon Black is a big collector of art from Cambodia. Others. Jim Clark, the co founder of Netscape, was a huge buyer. The Metropolitan Museum was a huge buyer. All connected in different ways to this dealer, Douglas Latchford.

[Bloomberg Host Carol Massar]

Can you describe the art in question? It's described beautifully in the piece.

[Matthew Campbell]

So a thousand odd years ago there was this civilization called the Khmer Empire in what's now Cambodia. Also much of Thailand and Vietnam.

[Bloomberg Host]

These are the guys who built Angkor Wat.

[Matthew Campbell]

Exactly.

[Bloomberg Host]

This is for those of you who can't picture it, it's the tomb raider place.

[Matthew Campbell]

Yeah, precisely. And Angkor Wat is the site people have heard of. There are something like 3,000 other sites, most of them not quite as big, but many of them really, really impressive. All over Cambodia they used to be full of stuff, full of these amazing life sizes. Right.

[Bloomberg Host]

Because all these temples are like empty when you go in them now.

[Matthew Campbell]

Right, exactly. Everything is gone, all cleaned out. People think it was taken by the French, which is a little bit true, but actually the really industrial scale looting was much later, 80s and 90s. And that's when these trophy pieces came

[Bloomberg Host Carol Massar]

into the U.S. how was that looting done and why?

[Matthew Campbell]

Well, it was done like any illicit market, whether it's drugs or guns, it's demand. People wanted this. It became a status symbol. And as a result there were these bands of looters, many of them connected in one way or another to the Khmer Rouge, who would go into these sites with at one end of the scale shovels and chisels and at the other dynamite and construct and construction equipment to blast this stuff out from where it was in situ. It then gets smuggled across the border into Thailand to Bangkok and then onto global markets.

[Bloomberg Host]

How did this fit with kind of the politics of the moment and how the Khmer Rouge wanted to rewrite or refocus the story of the history of that country? Because you can't really facilitate this on this big a scale without complicity of these governments.

[Matthew Campbell]

There were people in power in Cambodia involved in this all the way through. Absolutely. And the simple reason for that is Cambodia had a civil war that lasted for 30 years from 1968 to 1998. And for the combatants in that civil war, there were basically three ways to fund yourself. One was timber, it's a lot of forest, one was gemstones, and the other was stealing artifacts. And stealing artifacts was quite lucrative.

[Bloomberg Host Carol Massar]

As I mentioned, there's an incredible cast of characters in the excerpt in the book. Tell us about Bradley Gordon, the central

[Matthew Campbell]

figure of the book. The protagonist, more or less, is an American lawyer, Brad Gordon, who I met in 2022. He was hired by the Cambodian government to investigate historical looting as kind of a one off assignment. But it's something that ultimately took over a huge amount of his life. He became obsessed with this challenge of tracking these artworks all over the world and ultimately getting people to give them back. And he's had a lot of success in that with the help of US law enforcement.

[Bloomberg Host]

As you look around the world, I'm thinking of the big museum they just opened in Giza in Egypt with the Egyptian government getting back a lot of these artifacts from the British Museum, even some from the US and taking kind of hold of their cultural heritage. You talk a little bit about why there's a new generation of Cambodians who this really matters to and they really want this stuff back. Why is that change happening and is it making it a more relevant conversation for folks who are trying to rehome these art, these artifacts?

[Matthew Campbell]

It's really interesting to see these pieces in Cambodia, where a lot of them have now been returned thanks to these investigations, because to us, they're just beautiful. They're something that's interesting to look at. They're very cool. But Cambodians, these are part of a living religious culture. A lot of Cambodians, when they see them, will start praying or they will bow or they will leave little offerings and. And in some cases they're leaving offerings at pieces that were literally in like Penthouses in Miami until a few short years ago. So in a different context, it's just a totally different discussion.

[Bloomberg Host Carol Massar]

We're speaking with Matthew Campbell. He's a reporter for Bloomberg Businessweek. He's usually based in Singapore. He's here in New York City because his brand new book is coming out. It's called the man who Stole the Gods. He joins us here in the Bloomberg Interactive Brokers studio. The the backdrop of this, and one thing that I thought was really interesting in the excerpt was the explanation for sort of what qualifies as, in your words, Christina, rehoming this art and how countries are able to do it. And you use the example of Turkey in the Ottoman Empire. Just because something belonged to Turkey when Turkey had borders that were the Ottoman Empire, doesn't necessarily mean that Turkey can go out and lay claim to that piece of art. How does that work today?

[Matthew Campbell]

The way this works in the US is a piece of legislation called the National Stolen Property Act.

[Bloomberg Host]

Pretty clear.

[Matthew Campbell]

Which is pretty clear. And it's actually, it was passed in the aftermath of Bonnie and Clyde and the idea was it essentially made it a crime to knowingly possess stolen property. When that's a stolen car. It's kind of easy to get your head around with a thousand year old artifact. It's more complicated. So there are a series of legal tests that have to be passed. One of them, as you allude to, is a piece has to come from the country that wants it back, basically. So Turkey can't say, you know, I don't know, Armenia or some other distant part of the Ottoman Empire, oh, that's ours. That doesn't work. Has to be from the actual territory.

[Bloomberg Host Carol Massar]

Today's borders.

[Matthew Campbell]

Today's borders. Okay, but how do you prove that is an interesting question. In the case of a lot of the Cambodian pieces, you could prove that because ultimately archaeologists found the exact spots where these things were taken from by, for example, matching broken feet to statues that arrived in Manhattan without their feet.

[Bloomberg Host]

There's also been, there's been an argument for a while among a lot of powers who were more colonial nations, who plundered a lot of these places, that these countries didn't have the capacity or the wealth or the infrastructure to care for these items, that they were saving them. Now that's a very controversial opinion. We don't need to dig into that. But it seems to me like you, like you've seen again, I go back to Egypt and some other places throughout Africa, countries really investing in museums in ways to preserve and show this heritage. Why does that matter? Why is it important to Cambodia now? And why are these artifacts in some way or another always a little bit political?

[Matthew Campbell]

There is a political weight to this always. People in the UK are very familiar with the case of the Elgin Marbles, which have been a debate for a good hundred years now with the Greek government demanding these sculptures back. But yes, the excuse you often hear or the argument you often hear is these pieces are better off wherever it is in the Met, in the British Museum, than they are in their home countries. And there are certainly cases or at certain times where that may be true, but it's not true forever. And when things change, that argument melts away.

[Bloomberg Host Carol Massar]

You mentioned Jeffrey Epstein and something that we learned in the Epstein files. Who are some of the prominent collectors in the US around the world. You mentioned Miami, New York City, who liked this type of art.

[Matthew Campbell]

So Leon Black is one, a very large collection which is still in his possession as far as we know. Jim Clark, who was the co founder of Netscape, was a very big buyer. The Lindemann family in Florida, George Lindemann, who was a kind of private equity dealmaker, very wealthy, had a big collection, was actually found by the Cambodians through an Architectural Digest spread. And then the other big US collection, and it's one that a lot of the book focuses on, was at the Met.

[Bloomberg Host Carol Massar]

Wow. Hey, real quick, we only have about a minute left. Less than a minute. The reporting process for this book, usually you're based in Singapore. Talk to us just about the reporting process and how you reported this out.

[Matthew Campbell]

A lot of travel. I was in and out of Cambodia probably a dozen times. A lot to Bangkok, which is where much of the book takes place, a few times to New York. And also there's a huge documentary record through the legal process in the US there's been a lot of litigation around this subject. And also Douglas Latchford, this art dealer died in 2020 and a lot of his correspondence is now accessible.

[Bloomberg Host Carol Massar]

Well, it makes just a fantastic read. And Matthew, congratulations on the book. Thank you so much for joining us. And thanks for sharing it with our audience. Matthew Campbell, the author of the man who Stole the Gods. The book is out next week. You can check out the [e-mail] and of course on the Bloomberg terminal.

[Bloomberg Host]

Really fascinating. Making us both feel like huge underachievers here. It's quite the accomplishment. I'm more than just a little jealous.

[Bloomberg Host Carol Massar]

This is Matthew's second book, by the way.

[Bloomberg Host]

I don't want to talk about it. I don't want to talk about it. Matthew, you can't come back anymore. You're just making us feel like we're not doing enough work.

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