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Interpol Issues Notice for Lebanese Man Suspected of Trafficking in Looted Antiquities

FILE - the entrance hall of Interpol's headquarters in Lyon, central France on Sept.27, 2017. (AP Photo/Laurent Cipriani, File)
FILE - the entrance hall of Interpol's headquarters in Lyon, central France on Sept.27, 2017. (AP Photo/Laurent Cipriani, File)
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Interpol Issues Notice for Lebanese Man Suspected of Trafficking in Looted Antiquities

FILE - the entrance hall of Interpol's headquarters in Lyon, central France on Sept.27, 2017. (AP Photo/Laurent Cipriani, File)
FILE - the entrance hall of Interpol's headquarters in Lyon, central France on Sept.27, 2017. (AP Photo/Laurent Cipriani, File)

Interpol has issued an international warrant for a Lebanese man suspected of trafficking stolen antiquities, weeks after he was questioned in Lebanon, judicial officials said Friday.

The Red Notice was unsealed 10 months after a criminal court in New York issued an arrest warrant for Georges Lotfi, 82, charging him with criminal possession of stolen property as well as possessing looted artifacts.

The officials did not give further details about the Interpol warrant, which is a non-binding request to law enforcement agencies worldwide that they locate and provisionally arrest a fugitive. The notice is not an arrest warrant and does not require Lebanon to arrest Lotfi, The Associated Press reported.

The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations, said the American judiciary sent the case related to Lotfi to Lebanon and asked authorities in the Mediterranean nation to follow up on him.

When Lotfi was summoned for questioning by Lebanese authorities earlier this year, the officials said he denied charges that he had stolen antiquities, saying instead he had bought them from archeologists and sold them to a museum in the US.

They said it later became clear that the 27 antiquities were stolen in 1981 from a warehouse in Lebanon. The Interpol Red Notice that was posted online said Lotfi is charged with criminal possession of stolen property in the first degree, second degree and third degree.

Lotfi currently lives in Lebanon, which is home to invaluable archaeological sites.

The officials said US authorities said they would repatriate the antiquities to Lebanon on condition that Lebanese authorities put Lotfi under arrest.

The officials said that once Lebanon formally receives the Interpol warrant, authorities in the country should summon Lotfi for questioning and confiscate his passport.

Lotfi’s case is not the first of its kind. Smuggling and looting antiquities was not uncommon in Lebanon during the chaos of the 1975-90 civil war.

In 2018, Lebanon received a trio of ancient artifacts looted from the country during its civil war and recovered recently by New York authorities.

The treasures included a marble bull’s head dating to about 360 B.C. excavated at a Phoenician temple in south Lebanon decades ago. The other two were marble torsos from the 4th and 6th century B.C.

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Varieties

China's Population Falls for 3rd Straight Year

A delivery worker sits on a delivery vehicle along a street in Beijing on January 17, 2025. (Photo by Jade GAO / AFP)
A delivery worker sits on a delivery vehicle along a street in Beijing on January 17, 2025. (Photo by Jade GAO / AFP)
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China's Population Falls for 3rd Straight Year

A delivery worker sits on a delivery vehicle along a street in Beijing on January 17, 2025. (Photo by Jade GAO / AFP)
A delivery worker sits on a delivery vehicle along a street in Beijing on January 17, 2025. (Photo by Jade GAO / AFP)

China's population fell last year for the third straight year, its government said Friday, pointing to further demographic challenges for the world's second most populous nation, which is now facing both an aging population and an emerging shortage of working age people.
China's population stood at 1.408 billion at the end of 2024, a decline of 1.39 million from the previous year, The Associated Press reported.
The figures announced by the government in Beijing follow trends worldwide, but especially in East Asia, where Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong and other nations have seen their birth rates plummet. China three years ago joined Japan and most of Eastern Europe among other nations whose population is falling.
The reasons are in many cases similar: Rising costs of living are causing young people to put off or rule out marriage and child birth while pursuing higher education and careers. While people are living longer, that's not enough to keep up with rate of new births.
Countries such as China that allow very little immigration are especially at risk.
China has long been among the world’s most populous nations, enduring invasions, floods and other natural disasters to sustain a population that thrived on rice in the south and wheat in the north. Following the end of World War II and the Communist Party’s rise to power in 1949, large families re-emerged and the population doubled in just three decades, even after tens of millions died in the Great Leap Forward that sought to revolutionize agriculture and industry and the Cultural Revolution that followed a few years later.
After the end of the Cultural Revolution and leader Mao Zedong's death, Communist bureaucrats began to worry the country’s population was outstripping its ability to feed itself and began implementing a draconian “one child policy.” Though it was never law, women had to apply for permission to have a child and violators could face forced late-term abortions and birth control procedures, massive fines and the prospect of their child being deprived an identification number, effectively making them non-citizens.
Rural China, where the preference for male offspring was especially strong and two children were still ostensibly allowed, became the focus of government efforts, with women forced to present evidence they were menstruating and buildings emblazoned with slogans such as “have fewer children, have better children."
The government sought to stamp out selective abortion of female children, but with abortions legal and readily available, those operating illicit sonogram machines enjoyed a thriving business.
That has been the biggest factor in China’s lopsided sex ratio, with as many as millions more boys born for every 100 girls, raising the possibility of social instability among China’s army of bachelors. Friday’s report gave the sex imbalance as 104.34 men to every 100 women, though independent groups give the imbalance as considerably higher.
More disturbing for the government was the drastically falling birthrate, with China’s total population dropping for the first time in decades in 2023 and China being narrowly overtaken by India as the world’s most populous nation in the same year. A rapidly aging population, declining workforce, lack of consumer markets and migration abroad are putting the system under severe pressure.
While spending on the military and flashy infrastructure projects continues to rise, China’s already frail social security system is teetering, with increasing numbers of Chinese refusing to pay into the underfunded pension system.
Already, more than one-fifth of the population is aged 60 or over, with the official figure given as 310.3 million or 22% of the total population. By 2035, this number is forecast to exceed 30%, sparking discussion of changes to the official retirement age, which one of the lowest in the world. With fewer students, some vacant schools and kindergartens are meanwhile being transformed into care facilities for older people.
Such developments are giving some credence to the aphorism that China, now the world’s second largest economy but facing major headwinds, will “grow old before it grows rich.”
Government inducements including cash payouts for having up to three children and financial help with housing costs have had only temporary effects.
Meanwhile, China continued its transition to an urban society, with 10 million more people moving to cities for an urbanization rate of 67%, up almost a percentage point from the previous year.