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Saturday Mornings: "The Man Who Stole the Gods" Matthew Campbell on Looted Temples, Global Art Crime, and Cambodia’s Fight for Its Soul

Published on 30 Aug 2026
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🌍On MoneyFM 89.3’s Leaders in Action, Matthew Campbell, Author and Asia Editor at Bloomberg Businessweek and Saturday Mornings Show host Glenn van Zutphen dive into the illegal and highly fascinating world of one of the most gripping true‑crime sagas in modern history.

His book, "The Man Who Stole the Gods — the story of Douglas “Dynamite Doug” Latchford" is the thief who looted Cambodia’s sacred Khmer temples and sold stolen gods to the world’s most powerful museums.

Matthew details how the Khmer Rouge genocide created the perfect vacuum for cultural theft, how Latchford posed as an expert while running a global smuggling empire, and how Western museums ignored red flags as priceless artifacts flowed into their collections.

We explore complicity, corruption, violent extraction, and Cambodia’s emotional fight to reclaim its heritage, and what justice looks like when the criminal dies before trial.

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