• In 1995 police in the west country followed a tip and found three lorry loads of Chinese artefacts including bronze horses, ceramics and large carved headstones, laid out in a private garage, ready for an auction the following day. There was no prosecution, because of the difficulty of proving the offence of handling stolen goods, but most objects have been returned to China.
• The Sevso Treasure, of late Roman silver, valued at £40m, was to be auctioned at Sotheby's in 1990 by the Marquess of Northampton. The original export license from the Lebanon with which his family acquired the silver, proved to be false. While the collection was on promotional viewing in New York, Lebanon, Croatia and Hungary all claimed it, but none could prove ownership. The auction was cancelled, and the collection, still owned by the marquess, is unsaleable.
• At the end of the Gulf war about 3,000 objects were looted from museums in Iraq and have turned up in sales over the world, including the UK.
• The Getty Museum offered $600,000 for the Icklingham Leopard, just one among dozens of Roman bronzes illegally excavated from a site in Suffolk in the 1980s. The Getty abandoned the purchase on advice from the British Museum. Other pieces from the hoard were bought by two wealthy American private collectors from a New York gallery. After years of legal actions by the Suffolk landowner, an agreement was reached that on the death of the American owners, the pieces will be donated to the British Museum.