Michael Ward Collection

In September 2023, Manhattan antiquities dealer Michael Ward pleaded guilty to one count of criminal facilitation as part of a sweeping investigation by the Manhattan District Attorney's office and European authorities into alleged money laundering and organized crime involvement in the illicit antiquities trade. Ward also agreed to surrender 42 looted antiquities from Greece, Türkiye and Italy that had been consigned to him.

At the center of the investigation was Ward's dealings with another alleged antiquities trafficker: Eugene Alexander (aka Evgeni Svetoslavov Mutafchiev), a Bulgarian-American antiquities dealer. Court records allege Alexander has ties to TIM, a Bulgarian organized crime group out of Varna that got its start in smuggling, prostitution, gambling, car theft, and drug trafficking. Alexander also owned a share of a Maltese bank, SATABANK, which was delisted by the European Central Bank in 2020 over allegations of money laundering.

Alexander’s other business, of course, was antiquities trafficking, which is how he knew Michael Ward. Those ties came to light in July 2022, when German authorities seized bank records for Alexander. They revealed that from 1999 to 2022, Alexander had operated a money laundering scheme that involved selling looted antiquities to Ward and other American dealers and collectors.

Many of the dealers and collectors who Alexander supplied have been targeted by law enforcement: Michael Steinhardt (Deferred Prosecution Agreement, 2021); Erdal Dere, Fortuna Gallery (indicted by SDNY in 2020); Richard Beale, Roma Numismatics (convicted in 2023); and others.

Court records show Michael Ward acquired more than 100 antiquities from Alexander between 2015 and 2019,  80 of which were clearly looted. Looters sent pictures of their "fresh" discoveries to Alexander, whose computer was seized in Feb 2022. Once he had cleaned the objects, Alexander took new photos of them to share with Ward, who sent them to the Art Loss Register to obtain a "search certificate" claiming they had not been documented as stolen. In the process, Ward inadvertantly created a paper trail of false provenances that law enforcement later cited in the criminal complaint against him. 

Authorities allege Ward also signed false documents to further Alexander's money laundering scheme by creating fake transactions, suggesting the antiquities trade is being used for trade-based money laundering by organized crime groups.

For decades, Ward had dealt antiquities from his Madison Avenue gallery Ward and Co. Works of Art, which operated from 1982 until at least 2010. He had also held a pretigious position representing the art market, appointed by President George H. W. Bush in 1992 to serve on the United States’ Cultural Property Advisory Committee (CPAC), which implemented the 1970 UNESCO Cultural Property Convention domestically.

In the 1990s, Ward was caught selling recently looted Greek antiquities known as the Aidonia Treasure. He managed to escape the courtroom and settled with Greece by agreeing to donate the pieces to the Society for the Preservation of Greek Heritage in Washington, D.C. Furthermore.

The Steinhardt case later revealed that Ward had obtained many of his antiquities from a network of known smugglers and traffickers, including Gianfranco Becchina and Edoardo Almagia. According to the Steinhardt statement of facts, Ward "bought antiquities directly from known traffickers such as Giovanni Franco Becchina and Edoardo Almagià. He then sold them— typically with no listed provenance—to U.S. museums and prominent collectors, including Lawrence and Barbara Fleischman and Steinhardt."

Ward’s attitude for due diligence and provenance is demonstrated by a 1992 fax to Steinhardt, in which he advises Steinhardt that "[t]he more you inquire about details of ownership, etc. the less likely you will appear (if there is, God forbid a question) a credible bona fide purchaser. Michael, you want to appear as dumb as possible!'"

After his 2023 arrest, the District Attorney charged Ward with criminal facilitation in the fourth degree and found that all 42 objects listed in his case were stolen from their respective countries of origin, Greece, Italy, and Türkiye. Ward surrendered them in September 2023 but served no jail time.

As part of his plea agreement, Ward signed a statement that acknowledged his role helping Alexander sell looted antiquities and launder money that was the proceeds of crime, saying he was "shocked" to discover these facts when presented them by prosecutors.

"Although I did not know at the time that Eugene Alexander was engaged in illegal money laundering, nor did I know that I was in fact aiding Eugene Alexander in such illegal conduct, I knew or should have known that these documents were inaccurate when I signed them and that it was, therefore, probable that I was aiding Eugene Alexander in concealing or disguising the proceeds of criminal conduct." 

Ward's alleged trafficking partner Eugene Alexander pleaded guitly on July 8, 2025 in a Manhattan courtroom to a single count of conspiracy and agreed to pay a fine of $750,000.