ABOVE: The Getty Centre in L.A. may have bought looted antiquities like the statue of Apollo, left, says a report this weekend in the L.A. Times. In the note in the background, an internal memo published by the Times, the highlighted text reads rather bluntly: “We know it’s stolen.”

The L.A. Times unveiled a gargantuan piece this weekend on the possibility that the J. Paul Getty museum in Los Angeles may have bought dozens of illegally looted ancient artworks over the last 20 years. Dealers that the museum had been buying from for years have been charged by Italian police for conspiring to traffic looted antiquities, and the Italian government is now seeking the return of 42 objects. The alleged shenanigans date back as far as 1985, and it remains to be seen just how much the museum directors knew and when they knew it.

The Times story necessarily hedges its language, as no one at the Getty was willing to talk to them about it and the investigation is still ongoing. The Museum stiffened its guidelines for acquiring ancient artifacts in 1995, but items with murky provenances have still been purchased or donated. UNESCO has been tooting the looting alarm for 35 years, but as we all know, the world market for art and antiquities is still largely a shadowland of confidence men and graverobbers. From our vantage point, the Getty doesn’t look like a totally innocent naif, but it also doesn’t look like it set out to fill its halls with pilfered Greek and Italian statuary.

LINK: L.A. Times > Getty Had Signs It Was Acquiring Possibly Looted Art, Documents Show