Jean-Luc Martinez, president and director of the Louvre from 2013 to summer 2021, is in turmoil today. On Monday, May 23, he was taken into custody at the OCBC – Central Office for Combating Illicit Traffic in Cultural Property. Two days later, the former head of the world’s largest museum was charged with “complicity in fraud as part of an organized group and money laundering by falsely facilitating the origin of property from a crime or misdemeanour.” Vincent Rondo, current director of Egyptian antiquities at the Louvre Museum, and Olivier Perdue, associated with the Collège de France Egyptology network, were also taken into police custody and later released “without prosecution at this stage.” For his part, Jean-Luc Martinez was subsequently placed under judicial supervision.
“His integrity will be established”
At the center of this incredible event is a pink granite stele engraved with the name of King Tutankhamun. “This gem of the Louvre Abu Dhabi, bought by the Emiratis in 2016,” is one of five Egyptian antiquities purchased “for several tens of millions of euros” by a branch of the Paris Museum in the capital of the United Arab Emirates. whose license to the Louvre brand was sold for… 400 million euros until 2037. Last December, this agreement was even extended by ten years, until 2047, which represents a payment to Abu Dhabi of 165 million euros over ten additional years, an amount that will be paid between 2022 and 2023, said the French Minister of Culture Roselyn Bachelo, signatory of the agreement.
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According chain duck, OCBC investigators are trying to figure out if Jean-Luc Martinez could have “turned a blind eye” to the fake certificates of origin. Moreover, in a note from the beginning of 2019, Egyptologist Mark Gabold warned Vincent Rondo and Olivier Perdu about the “dubious origin of the stele.” Following this, the latter subsequently gave the file to Jean-Luc Martinez. Lawyers for the former president of the Louvre, I Jacqueline Laffon and I François Arthufel, reacted to AFP by saying: “Jean-Luc Martinez disputes his interrogation in this case with the greatest firmness.” They added: “He is leaving his statements to the courts for the time being and has no doubt that his good faith will be proven.”
The “embarrassing” file
Revealed in columns chained duck and evening paper World, this case has its origins in a preliminary investigation secretly opened in July 2018 by the National Jurisdiction for Combating Organized Crime (Junalco) of the Paris prosecutor’s office on suspicion of trafficking in antiquities from unstable countries in the Near and Middle East. East. She comes…
