global trade has been severely disrupted in the red sea by a dangerous militia in yemen, who the u.s. navy is trying to stop. >> when was the last time that the u.s. navy operated at this pace for a couple months? >> i think you'd have to go back to world war ii where you have ships who are engaged in combat. when i say engaged in combat, they're getting shot at, we're getting shot at, and we're shooting back. for a year, "60 minutes" has been investigating the theft of cambodia's cultural heritage. thousands of artifacts from religious sites across the country, leaving empty pedestals where gods and deities once stood. we found some of them on display at the metropolitan museum of art. how did these looted treasures

get here, and will they ever be returned? >> we are on the verge of returning a number of them? >> all of them? >> that, i can't say. >> i'm lesley stahl. >> i'm bill whitaker. >> i'm anderson cooper. >> i'm sharyn alfonsi. >> i'm jon wertheim. >> i'm cecilia vega. >> i'm norah o'donnell. >> i'm scott pelley. those stories tonight on "60 minutes." ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ discover the melting sensation of lindt classic recipe milk chocolate. the creamiest milk and finest cocoa. crafted by the lindt master chocolatier. it's beyond words. classic recipe by lindt. hi. i use febreze fade defy plug.

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israel began its unrelenting war in gaza in response, president biden warned iran and its proxies in the middle east to stay out of it. one of those groups decided instead that it was all-in. that group is a shia militia from yemen known as the houthis. yemen is the poorest country in the middle east, but its 1,200 miles of coastline leads in and out of the suez canal, the primary route by sea between europe and asia, responsible for a trillion dollars a year in global trade. as we first reported in february, when the houthis began to attack commercial ships in solidarity with hamas, president biden faced a crisis in the red sea and sent the u.s. navy into its first major fight of the 21st century. >> reporter: our report begins

not on the water but in the air, where, from a u.s. navy reconnaissance plane 500 feet above the red sea, we were the first journalists to see the types of commercial ships the houthis have targeted, and the u.s. warships sent to protect them. >> we are not going to let the houthis hold this strait hostage. >> reporter: vice admiral brad cooper is the u.s. military's deputy commander in the middle east. after october 7th, as the navy's top officer in the region, he ordered the fifth fleet into an area it typically sailed right through. >> how many sailors are now in the red sea? >> we've got about 7,000 right now. it's a large commitment. >> what makes the red sea one of the most important waterways in the world? >> 15% of global trade flows exactly through the red sea. so, keeping these waterways open is critical. it's a core commitment the

united states has from strategic perspectives, maintaining a level of commerce. >> reporter: the red sea is about the size of california. in the north, the suez canal. in the south, the 20-mile-wide strait known in air back as the babel mendev, the gate of grief. it was near there three months ago that a japanese chartered ship built to carry cars was hijacked by the houthis, who posted this video. since then, according to the pentagon, the houthis have launched for than 100 attacks, and the u.s. navy has shot down more than 150 drones and missiles fired by the militia that controls one-third of yemen, including the capital, sanaa. as houthi attacks intensified in december and january, the world's largest container ship companies all made the decision to avoid the suez and go around africa's cape of good hope, adding as much as a month of

travel time and a million dollars in fuel. u.s. federal reserve chair jerome powell told "60 minutes" two weeks ago, the diversions pose a risk to the global economy. and in the near term -- >> that's going to affect europe much more than it's going to affect us. >> reporter: tesla and volvo were both forced to suspend some european production in january due to supply chain disruptions. there are still ships going through the suez, mostly smaller, regional carriers that are willing to run the current risks of the red sea. >> how much is that in terms of that traffic? has it been reduced by half? >> it's been reduced. on any given day, sometimes 40%. but it's clearly flowing. i think in many respects, it's flowing because of the defensive umbrella that we put over the southern red sea for sure. >> reporter: the official name of that defensive umbrella is "operation prosperity guardian." it's a coalition of more than 20

nations that includes the united kingdom. but most of the ships, aircraft, and fire power are coming from america. >> when was the last time that the u.s. navy operated at this pace for a couple months? >> i think you'd have to go back to world war ii, where you have ships who are engaged in combat. when i say, engaged in combat, where they're getting shot at, we're getting shot at, and we're shooting back. >> reporter: initially, the houthis, backed by iran, stated they would only shoot at ships linked to israel. in support of the palestinian people and to force a ceasefire in gaza. their ultimate political aims, as well as their actual aim, appears to be less precise. they have fired at ships tied to dozens of nations. the houthis' official motto is,

god is great, death to america, death to israel, a curse upon the jews, victory to islam. while their slogan may not be new, their weapons and tactics are, according to admiral cooper. >> the houthis are the first entity in the history of the world to use antiship ballistic missiles ever, firing at shipping. >> no one has ever used -- >> no one has ever used an anti-ship ballistic missile, certainly against commercial shipping, much less against u.s. navy ships. >> reporter: admiral cooper took us inside the fifth fleet's command center and naval headquarters in bahrain. >> i think there's a sense the houthis are a rag tag, kind of, terrorist group. >> yeah, yeah. yeah, yeah, yeah. that can be a sense, and it would be a false sense. we will unwise to consider that. you know, ten years of being supplied by the iranians, very sophisticated advanced weapons. they have hit a few ships. >> of those targets, how many of them are directed at u.s. naval assets?

>> the overwhelming majority the last couple of months have been directed at internationally flagged merchant ships. a small percentage of them are directly u.s. navy ships. >> what kind of damage would one of those anti-ship ballistic missiles do on a commercial ship? >> let's go right here. this is exactly what it looks like. the houthis attacked it, and you can see in practical terms what the damage was. >> reporter: the houthis also have inexpensive iranian-designed attack drones in their arsenal, like the 15-foot-wide samad, with a range of up to 1,100 miles. some of their anti-ship ballistic missiles resemble the iranian weapons seen here and can hit targets up to about 300 miles away. >> if there was an anti-ship ballistic missile launched, this ballistic missiles travels about mach 5. about 3,000 miles an hour. >> how much time is there between a houthi launch and it could reach a u.s. ship? >> if it's coming to them -- put yourself in the seat of the

destroyer captain on that ship, he has 9 to 15 seconds to make a decision of whether to shoot that down. it's intense. >> reporter: to speak to one of those destroyer captains deployed in the southern red sea, we took a five-mile helicopter ride from the "uss dwight d. sizen hauer" over to the "uss mason," where we met commander justin smith. the commander is one of four warships in the area that have shot down more than a dozen of the houthis anti-ship ballistic missiles. >> how quickly can you see those? >> anywhere from one to two minutes out. and providing me that decision space, to give me the 9 to 15 seconds as the captain of this ship of what my actions are going to be. >> you made it sound like that's allot of time, 9 to 15 seconds. it doesn't sound like much. >> seems small and short in duration, but my crew has that ready proficiency to be able to engage. >> reporter: we learned that so

far, the navy has fired more than 100 of their standard surface-to-air missiles that can cost as much as $4 million each. >> roger, over. >> reporter: the decision to fire one at an incoming houthi missile or kamikaze attack drone is made in the ship's combat information center, or cic. >> 3703. >> we can be attacked at any time in any place. >> reporter: that's where commander smith showed us a video of the "uss mason" doing just that. >> see an intercept here followed by a quick explosion, showing a successful engagement. >> the weapons systems that you have on board here, and specifically the standard missiles, those are expensive weapons. and you're using them to shoot down $10,000 drones. is that worth it? >> i don't think you can put a price tag on safety and the defense of our sailors on board. >> you have to be right 100% of the time. >> they just have to get it right once.

>> 27 naughts -- >> reporter: a day before our visit to the "uss mason," about 100 miles away, another u.s. destroyer needed its weapon of last resort. a defensive cannon called a ciws to shoot down a houthi cruise missile that was a mile out and closing fast. most u.s. warships have one of these gun systems, seen here in exercises. the "uss dwight d. eisenhower" has two. on that ship, with its 5,000 sailors and more than 75 aircraft, strike group commander rear admiral marc miguez told us, the houthis have proven to be resourceful adversaries. >> there are the intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance drones that are the houthis are launching. how have you seen them used? >> when we first got to this

area, we would detect the drone, and then all of a sudden, you know, ten minutes later or five minutes later, there was an attack. in other words, a ballistic missile being launched or a cruise missile being launched. and we've deduced over time that they are obviously using these drones to perfect their targeting solution. >> reporter: since the war in israel and gaza began, other iranian-backed militias have targeted u.s. forces in jordan, iraq, and syria, with at least 175 attacks that injured 183 service members and killed three. admiral miguez told us so far the "uss eisenhower" has only been focused on the houthis in the southern red sea. since january 11th, its planes have regularly been striking their launch strikes in yemen, as have u.s. destroyers. the u.s. also conducted a cyber attack on an iranian spy ship

that was gathering intelligence in and around the red sea. but the houthi attacks keep coming. >> could the houthis do this without iranian support? >> no. for a decade, the iranians have been supplying the houthis, they've been resupplying them. they're resupplying them, as we sit here right now at sea. we know this is happening. they're advising them, and they're providing targeting information. this is crystal clear. >> are there members of iran's elite revolutionary guard corp. that are actually on the ground in yemen providing intelligence and targeting? >> the iranian revolutionary guard corp. is inside yemen, and they are serving side by side with the houthis, advising them and providing target information. >> so, what have we done to degrade that capability? >> that will obviously end up being a policy decision. our role at this point is to simply be ready and continue to be aggressive in exercising our right to self-defense. >> do these offensive u.s. air

strikes against these houthi targets in yemen risk escalating this conflict? >> i don't think so. we're targeting those platforms that are targeting us. >> if we were to look at the calendar, right, since october 7th, surging of u.s. forces to the red sea. and yet they keep firing back. they keep seeming to be opportunistic in their response. is the u.s. navy, the fifth fleet, are the actions having an effect? >> it's very clear that we are degrading their capability. and every single day they attempt to attack us, we're eliminating and disrupting them in ways that are meaningful and i do believe have an impact. >> how long does this go on? >> i have a pretty clear end game in mind, and that is the restoration of the free flow of commerce and safe navigation of

>> four months after our report first aired, the houthis are still on the attack in the red sea. so far, they have sunk two cargo ships, the second just this past week. overall, shipping traffic remains about half of what it was before the attacks began. >> what's the secret weapon on the "uss eisenhower"? >> morale is the most important thing. >> at 60minutesovertime.com. acet called tardive dyskinesia, or td. so his doctor prescribed austedo xr— a once-daily td treatment for adults. ♪ as you go with austedo ♪ austedo xr significantly reduced dan's td movements. some people saw a response as early as 2 weeks. with austedo xr, dan can stay on his mental health meds— (dan) cool hair! (female vo) austedo xr can cause depression, suicidal thoughts, or actions in patients with huntington's disease.

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the theft of cambodia's cultural treasures, thousands of sacred stone, bronze, and gold artifacts from religious sites across the country, might just be the greatest art heist in history.

it began nearly a century ago when cambodia was colonized by france. but in the 1970s, '80s, and '90s, amidst genocide, civil war, and political turmoil, the looting became a global business, much of it run by a british man named douglas latchford. he kept some of it for himself, thieves stole, latchford then sold to wealthy private collectors and some of the most important museums around the world. as we first reported in december, cambodia's government has spent the last ten years trying to track it all down and bring their history and heritage home. angkor wat, with its towering spires, is the glory of cambodia. nearly 1,000 years old, it's one of the biggest and most extraordinary religious temples in the world, sprawling across 400 acres. originally built to honor the hindu god vishnu, it then became a buddhist temple and remains a place of worship today.

you can wander here for weeks, lost in a labyrinth of ancient stone corridors and sacred chambers, but the scars of plunder run deep. looters have hacked off the heads of many statues. they've stolen bodies as well. empty pedestals mark where gods and deities once stood. on some, only the feet remain. it's worse in the rest of cambodia's 4,000 temples. nearly all have been looted. this one is 100 miles northeast of angkor wat on a remote mountain called sandak. >> this was hit very heavily by the looting gangs. they found gold. they found statues. they found many, many things. >> reporter: that's brad gordon, an american lawyer who's been working for the cambodian government for ten years, tracking down its stolen treasures. he brought us to sandak with his team of investigators, archaeologists, and art scholars. >> this is so cool. >> reporter: in the temple's crumbling courtyard, little

remains, mostly empty pedestals scattered among the sralao trees. >> it's remarkable just how much stuff is scattered on the ground. >> yes. it's like a pedestal graveyard. >> we've all seen, in museums, these statues with no feet on them, and i don't think people realize the feet were hacked off because in order to steal them, that's the easiest way to get them off the pedestal. >> we know when the looters came to sites like this, the first thing they took was the heads. that was the easiest to grab. then later on, maybe they come back and get the torso. but they were not very careful, so they left behind pieces. >> reporter: for cambodians, these statues are not just works of art. they are sacred deities that hold the souls of their ancestors to whom they ask for guidance and pray. >> this is incredible. these were all looted? >> yes, all looted. >> all of these heads cut off? >> the head was cut off, yes.

>> reporter: phoeurng sackona, cambodia's minister of culture, is in charge of the government's efforts to track down their stolen gods. we met her in a closely guarded warehouse not far from angkor wat, where more than 6,000 pieces from temples across the country are stored for safekeeping, each one sculpted by an artisan from an ancient khmer empire that lasted for more than five centuries and spanned cambodia, laos, thailand, and vietnam. >> so the statues have a soul? the statues are -- are they living? >> of course, yes. and we believe that we can talk with them. they will hear. they will see. what do you want? what do you see? what do you do in your life, in your home, outside in the society also? >> they're watching? >> they're watching everywhere. >> reporter: phoeurng sackona's entire family was killed in the genocide that began in 1975 when the khmer rouge, a radical communist group, took over, forcing millions of cambodians into labor camps.

some 2 million people, nearly a quarter of the population, were slaughtered or starved to death. the khmer rouge lost power in 1979, but fighting and instability continued for decades, leaving cambodia's temples unprotected and vulnerable, easy targets for unscrupulous antiquities dealers like douglas latchford. >> who was douglas latchford? >> i would say that he was, in many ways, the mastermind behind the greatest art heist in history. >> the greatest art heist in history? >> yes, in terms of scope and multitude of crime sites and the enormous amount of statues that were taken out. >> reporter: latchford lived in thailand. an enigmatic british businessman, he began collecting in the 1960s. he had, it seems, two great loves, cambodian antiquities and thai body builders. he sponsored bangkok's biggest bodybuilding competition, the

latchford classic. >> how would you describe him? >> he was extremely deceptive. i think in many ways he was ruthless. but he hid that behind this incredible facade of charm. >> reporter: latchford portrayed himself as a scholar and protector of cambodia's culture, a reputation he burnished by donating sculptures to the metropolitan museum of art in new york and other prestigious institutions. he also published three books filled with the finest examples of cambodian antiquities. many of them, it turns out, latchford had stolen. >> he was using the books to sell his catalogs. he was handing them out. he was using them to sell pieces, and he understood a certain psychology of collectors out there that if they see something in a beautiful book, they think it's legitimate. >> reporter: those books have been an invaluable guide for brad gordon and his team, helping them compile a database of thousands of missing artifacts, many of which they didn't know existed until latchford published photos of

them. gordon's team got their big break when they met this man in 2012. he was a former khmer rouge child soldier and leader of a gang of looters. his name was toek tik. >> that first meeting, i didn't really know who we had met. i knew that he was important. i knew that many people were telling me he was the best. and i knew that he was feared. >> why were people afraid of him? >> you know, over the years, he had killed many people. >> reporter: it turned out toek tik had worked for decades supplying douglas latchford with thousands of treasures. and he was amazed to see them again in latchford's books. >> he kept opening the book and going back to the front cover and going through and tapping and saying, i know this one, i know this one, i know this one. >> when he says he knew this one meant he helped loot those ones? >> that's what we learned later, yeah. >> reporter: toek tik became a key confidential source for gordon's team.

they gave him a code name, lion, to protect his identity and followed him to dozens of temples, where he confessed what he'd found and how he'd stolen it. >> he would say to us, i'm going to transfer everything in my head to you. i'm going to tell you everything, every secret. >> you felt like his memory was very good? it was accurate? >> oh, it was unbelievable. he remembered the size of everything measured against his body. he would use his arm to show us how long a statue was. >> why do you think he wanted to cooperate? >> you know, he felt tremendously guilty about many things he had done in his life, about the killing, about the looting, and we offered him a road to redemption, a way to do something really good at the end of his life. >> reporter: they recorded hundreds of hours of lion's testimony. he explained how gangs of looters would spend weeks at chisels, metal detectors, even dynamite to find and dig out treasures.

dozens of men would hoist heavy stone statues onto ox carts before transporting them across the border into thailand and into the hands of douglas latchford. lion never met latchford, but he'd send him photographs of artifacts he could choose from. >> we hear about them saying, oh, we had to go to this temple and take a photo, and then sending it back. my sense was he was shopping. he had a list. the looters knew his priorities. >> reporter: like these, which came from a temple complex called koh ker. the statues from there had a distinctive style that latchford loved. it was, however, a dangerous business. most looters only made enough to buy food for their families, and fighting between rival gangs was common. >> people were killed over these antiquities. do you look at these as blood statues? >> for sure. they're blood antiquities. whenever i see a statue, i think

about who died to get this out of the ground or get it out of a temple and to move it here. so much of this looting was done in the shadow of the war, shadow of the genocide. >> reporter: it was this 500-pound sandstone warrior from koh ker that appeared in a sotheby's auction catalog in 2011 that put douglas latchford on the radar of u.s. law enforcement. its feet were missing, and the price tag an estimated $2 million to $3 million. >> when it appeared in the market, there were a number of archaeologists, a number of people who immediately recognized that the source of the statue as being a specific temple in cambodia. >> it came from koh ker? >> that's right. >> reporter: until he retired last september, jp labbat was a special agent on the cultural property, art, and antiquities unit with homeland security. >> a team from the u.s. attorney's office at the southern district of new york traveled to cambodia to inspect the site where the statue had been removed.

and so the base was still there with the feet still in the ground, and so they were able to match that base and feet to the statue. >> and that was enough evidence to get the statue pulled off the market? >> that's right. >> reporter: after years of legal wrangling, sotheby's finally agreed to send this stolen warrior back to cambodia. a ceremony was held welcoming it home, and investigators were able to trace its original sale back to douglas latchford, who was asked about its repatriation in a german documentary in 2014. >> is it a good day for cambodia, or is it a bad day for the art market if these things are coming back? >> it's a good day for cambodia. it's a bad day for the art market. >> reporter: law enforcement in new york was closing in on latchford, but he claimed prosecutors had him all wrong. >> their imagination has gone wild.

they've seen too many "indiana jones" films. as far as i know, there is no such thing as a smuggling network, and i certainly don't belong to any smuggling network. >> the attempted sale of this statue in 2011, was that a turning point in the unraveling of douglas latchford? >> i would say yes. that case put more of a focus and a spotlight on him. and then efforts were then doubled to, like, really peel back the onion and look into latchford's activities. >> reporter: the testimony of former looters found by brad gordon and his team was critical for the u.s. attorney's case against latchford. >> how rare is it to actually have access to the looters, to people who actually stole these things 10, 20, 30 years ago? >> i know of no other case where that's happened, and it's quite remarkable to have looters actively assisting a team of investigators to recover artifacts that they had a first hand in helping remove from the

country. >> reporter: douglas latchford was finally indicted by u.s. authorities in 2019 for smuggling, conspiracy, wire fraud, and other charges. but he died before he could be put on trial. brad gordon eventually convinced latchford's family to return his personal collection of stolen treasures. among the first pieces to come home in 2021 was this statue from koh ker. lion, weakened by cancer, came to inspect it in cambodia's national museum to verify it was the same one he'd dug out of the ground. >> and then he turned to me, and he said, it's the real statue. you know, it was a remarkable thing to watch, and just his -- his relationship. it -- it was living to him. >> do you think he was happy it was back? >> thrilled. so happy. he knew that he had done something good. >> reporter: lion died a few

months later, but the secrets he revealed continue to bring statues back to cambodia's national museum. masterpieces that left the country long before these schoolchildren were born. >> does the return of these statues, these gods, help some to heal? >> yes, to get back the soul of the nation. >> the soul of the nation? >> it's not only for me but all of my family who was died during the war, and for all cambodian people. >> reporter: there are still many more stolen cambodian statues and artifacts in museums and private collections around the world. when we return, cambodia's fight to get those looted relics back. i won't let my moderate to severe plaque psoriasis symptoms define me. emerge as you. with tremfya®, most people saw 90% clearer skin at 4 months and the majority stayed clearer, at 5 years. serious allergic reactions may occur. tremfya® may increase your risk of infections

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it's taken a team of cambodian investigators led by brad gordon, an american lawyer, more than ten years to document the theft of thousands of ancient statues and relics by a british collector named douglas latchford. as we reported last december, they've managed to get some of what he stole back, but many of cambodia's greatest treasures are still out there, hidden away in the mansions of millionaires and billionaires and hiding in plain sight on display in some of the most prestigious museums around the world. >> reporter: the metropolitan museum of art in new york has one of the most important collections of cambodian antiquities in the world. but many of the finest pieces on display here in the southeast asian art wing are stolen, like this one and this one. this as well. all passed through the hands of douglas latchford. latchford sold this one to the met in the early 1990s.

this one, he donated. >> do you think people visiting the met know that these were looted? >> i think most people who walk through the met, they have no idea those are blood antiquities. they have no idea what the history is behind those pieces. they don't know the temples they came from. they don't know the people who were killed to get them here. >> the dirt has been brushed off. there's a little note that says where it came from. should people believe what's on that little note? >> no, absolutely not. >> reporter: last year, we went with brad gordon to see where in cambodia the met and other museums' collections really did come from. >> this is incredible. >> reporter: this seven-story pyramid is more than 1,000 years old and rises out of the jungle in koh ker in northeast cambodia. it's one of dozens of temples in what was once the capital of an ancient khmer empire. >> looters have been all over this site for decades. >> correct. >> douglas latchford loved the statuary. >> in love with the beauty, in

love with the artistic. >> the statues here have a distinctive style that he particularly loved. >> correct. >> reporter: and perhaps the most famous statues in that distinctive style that latchford stole from koh ker were nine stone warriors, once arranged together in a battle scene. today seven have been returned to the national museum in phnom penh, including this 500-pound sandstone sculpture. it's the one sotheby's tried to sell in 2011. they're back on their original pedestals, their ankles reunited with their feet hacked off by looters. >> this was at sotheby's. this was at christie's. >> norton simon. >> norton simon museum. >> reporter: hab touch is the secretary of state in cambodia's ministry of culture. he's working with brad gordon to bring back the two koh ker statues whose empty pedestals sit in the mm. >> so do you know what are supposed to be on -- >> we know. >> you know what are supposed to be here, and you know what's -- >> we know. >> -- supposed to be here. >> among nine sculptures, we have seven already. only two missing. >> reporter: one of those missing sculptures was

discovered in the glossy pages of "architectural digest" in 2008. this mythical army commander and a stunning number of other stolen works were all together in the palm beach mansion of the late billionaire george lindemann and his wife, frayda. >> the ancient treasures of cambodia were sitting in the living room of an incredibly wealthy family in america, in florida, on display while people were having cocktails. >> the one thing that i'm always struck by is how many people witnessed it and have been silent and continue to be silent today. >> reporter: the lindemanns spent an estimated $20 million building the collection with the help of douglas latchford. frayda lindemann didn't respond to our request for an interview. but in koh ker, we showed her home to two former looters. >> what do you think of this house? "it's a beautiful house," he said. "it looks like it belongs to a king." the former looters pointed out another statue in the lindemanns' living room they said they helped steal. this reclining figure of the

hindu god vishnu. they said it was dug out of the ground from this exact spot in late 1995. >> you're 100% sure this was taken from here by you and others in 1995. >> translator: yeah, i'm sure. >> reporter: they also identified a number of other statues they say they stole that appear in books published by douglas latchford. they say they found this copper statue using a metal detector. >> this is bodhisattva at ease? >> yeah. >> reporter: they dug it out of the ground here in 1990. jp labbat, former special agent with homeland security, found photos of the statue covered in dirt on douglas latchford's computer. latchford sold it to the met in 1992, and here it is still on display. >> you were able to get access to some of latchford's emails? >> yes. and in there, there are detailed stories about the manner in

which he obtained pieces, the fact that he was having them reassembled and repaired, that dirt and crustaceans were being cleaned off of them. the ground. freshly dug out of >> fresh. these were fresh pieces that he would describe in his emails that needed a level of restoration before he could even attempt to sell them. >> reporter: douglas latchford was indicted in 2019 but died before he could be put on trial. federal prosecutors in new york, however, continue tracing his looted artifacts. they believe at least 18 of them have landed up at the met. >> i am very involved in our work on provenance. >> reporter: andrea bayer is deputy director for collections and administration at the met. >> the met has said they will return objects based upon rigorous evidentiary review. what rigorous evidentiary review was done before acquiring these pieces? >> not enough. >> it seems like the met had a don't ask/don't tell policy. they wanted to build up their collection, and nobody was

really asking questions where it came from. >> for people, many people in the art world, there was a sense of protecting great objects that stood a chance of being destroyed. we no longer feel about it that way. >> reporter: under pressure ten years ago, the met did return two statues called kneeling attendants, which had been donated to them by douglas latchford. >> in 2013, when you returned the kneeling attendants, did you investigate the other items that douglas latchford had brought to this museum? >> i don't know the answer to that question. i can only pick up the story several years later when douglas latchford was indicted in 2019, when we immediately and proactively went to the u.s. attorney's office and offered our full cooperation. >> well, i can pick up the story actually in 2013 because a spokesman for the met said that no special effort was going to be made to check the provenances of any other douglas latchford donated work. why wouldn't the met want to

look into everything else that douglas latchford had brought to this museum? >> i can't speculate about why that didn't happen. >> but no one investigated all the other items that douglas latchford gave? >> not to my knowledge. >> reporter: the met is not the only major museum with looted cambodian artifacts, but its collection is one of the largest in the world. last year, the museum announced it would create a research team to examine the provenance, or acquisition history, of all its collections. >> it's taken ten years since douglas latchford was shown to have given stolen property to the met, for the met to set up this provenance team. why has it taken ten years? >> it was a slow process. i'll grant you that. it was a slow process. but i think that the fact that we are fully engaged now, fully cooperative now, is our only answer to this really. it's a moment of reckoning, and

we're ready to do what it takes now to right whatever the wrong is. >> four years ago, when douglas latchford was indicted by prosecutors, did you set up a team to check the provenance of every latchford work? >> we started -- absolutely. and the.ed to dig in right then it's not easy. i mean the fact that we don't have much information has to do with the fact that it's very hard to find the information. >> but there's enough information for federal prosecutors to charge douglas latchford with stealing and looting and trafficking in smuggled items. how much more evidence do you need? you haven't returned any douglas latchford-related items since he's been indicted, and that was four years ago. >> but we are on the verge of returning a number of them. >> all of them? >> that i can't say. >> reporter: that interview took place in september. two days before we went to air, prosecutors announced the met would return 13 antiquities that came through douglas latchford. but the met is not returning

this statue, which was specifically cited in the indictment of latchford, or this one, which latchford sold to the met in 1992. cambodia's culture minister called the met's announcement a first step and says she looks forward to the return of many more of our treasures. >> shouldn't museums have thought twice about buying things that were coming out of cambodia during the genocide and civil war and decades of strife? >> and this question that you raise is really the crux of what we're wrestling with. you've acquired pieces from a known smuggler who used a team of looters that the government has interviewed and taken statements from. they have emails which refute the information in your own provenance at the museum. you have items in the museum which were named in the indictment of latchford that are still there. and so these pieces should go back. >> there's no question. >> it's the right thing to do.

>> reporter: this past september, the lindemann family, whose collection was showcased in "architectural digest," struck a deal with federal agreeing to return 33 stolen treasures. in a statement to "the new york times," the lindemanns said, having purchased these items from dealers that we assumed were reputable, we were saddened to learn how they made their way to the market in the united states. >> why did the lindemanns agree to return their collection to cambodia? >> the pieces were dirty. i think they finally came around to the fact that latchford was dirty, that their collection was all looted pieces. it was obvious, so they decided to surrender them. >> reporter: we got a peek at what was the lindemann collection shortly after the deal was done. it was sitting in a warehouse in upstate new york, a nation's living gods and ancestors waiting for a ride home. >> this is like a whole wing of a museum. >> reporter: a wing of a museum that only the lindemanns and

their friends had access to. >> if the lindemanns hadn't published these in "architectural digest" back in 2008 -- >> i think there's a good chance we maybe never would have found it. we always say the gods want to come home. we feel like the gods have spoken today. they want to come home. >> reporter: as one of the biggest crates was being opened, waiting eagerly was muikong taing and thyda long, two members of brad gordon's investigative team. this would be their first look at the mythical army commander taken from koh ker. they were likely the first cambodians to set eyes on it since douglas latchford stole it more than 50 years ago. >> he's here! >> there's a look in his eyes and on his face. >> it's much bigger than i expected it to be. >> its presence is extraordinary. >> i did not expect to feel this way. >> reporter: even the commander

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