Large Haul of Stolen Antiquities Retrieved

Yesterday, an investigative team under the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency arrested six people, including a Mr. Jeong (60, antiques dealer), and indicted them without detention on charges of stealing and selling antiques and paintings from old houses, including Confucian temples and head family homes.

The police claim that the gang stole 700 antiques and a transcription - a copy of the tangible cultural item No. 409 of South Gyeongsang Province- from Mr. Ha who lives in Daegok-myeon, Jinju, in September of 2005. They also made off with around 3,000 cultural items and valuable old paintings from around 100 head family homes and Confucian temples, including the birthplace of the scholar Kim Seong-soo (Buan-myeon, Gochang-gun, North Jeolla Province).

Among the cultural assets stolen were the Gwak Bun-yang Haengrakdo folding screen (Pleasure of Gwak Boon-yang), a depiction of Tang Dynasty scholar Gwak Bun-yang, Jang Seung-eop’s Kimyeongjeoljido (A painting of tableware, flowers, twigs and fruit), and a Jeongseon scenic painting. Some of these paintings are valued well into the tens of millions of won.

The police secured 2,174 antiques and cultural pieces and are still looking for the remaining 900 pieces. A police investigation found that the suspects served time at Cheongsong correctional facility before trading in antiques for ten years. They traded cultural assets that were highly valuable through art dealers, and for those valued into the hundreds of thousands of won, they used antique auction sites.

pen@donga.com