TheLeader VOLUME XXVI ISSUE1 Winter2025 - Flipbook - Page 5
th
34 Annual Leadership 100 Conference
Colonel Matthew Bogdanos, Chief,
Antiquities Trafficking Unit, New York District Attorney’s Office,
to Address Forum on Thursday, February 20
Colonel Matthew Bogdanos,
Chief, Antiquities Trafficking
Unit, New York District
Attorney’s Office, has served as
Assistant District Attorney since
1988. He is an author, boxer, and
a retired colonel in the United
States Marine Corps. Following
the September 11, 2001 attacks,
Bogdanos deployed to
Afghanistan where he was
awarded a Bronze Star for
actions against Al-Qaeda and
the Taliban. In 2003, while on
active duty in the Marine Corps, he led an investigation into the
looting of Iraq's National Museum, and was subsequently awarded
the National Humanities Medal for his efforts. Returning to the
District Attorney’s Office in 2010, he created and still heads the
Antiquities Trafficking Unit, “the only one of its kind in the world.”
He had previously gained national attention for the prosecution of
Sean Combs, who was acquitted of weapons and bribery charges in
a 2001 trial stemming from a 1999 nightclub shootout.
Bogdanos attended Don Bosco Preparatory High School in New
Jersey and later Bucknell University in Pennsylvania. He holds a
Bachelor's degree in classical studies from Bucknell and a degree in
law from Columbia University Law School. He also has a Master's
degree in Classical Studies from Columbia University and another
Master's in Strategic Studies from the United States Army War
College.
Bogdanos is one of a set of twins born and raised in New York to a
Greek father, Konstantine, and a French mother, Claire. He is one
of four children. Growing up he waited tables in his parents' Greek
restaurant, Deno's Place, in lower Manhattan.
Bogdanos enlisted in the United States Marine Corps Reserve in
January 1977, while still a freshman. In 1988, he resigned from
active duty to join the Manhattan District Attorney's Office.
Following the September 11, 2001 attacks, Bogdanos returned to
full-time active duty.
In 1996, Bogdanos led a counter-narcotics action on the
Mexico–United States border. He was active during Operation
Desert Storm and served in South Korea, Lithuania, Guyana,
Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Kosovo. In 2001, he was part of a law
enforcement, counter-terrorism team deployed to Afghanistan,
where he was awarded a Bronze Star for actions against Al-Qaeda
for, according to the Bronze Star citation, "seizing unexpected
opportunities and relying on his personal courage often at great
personal risk.”
In March 2003, he was promoted to colonel and deployed to Iraq as
head of his team. During his stint in Iraq, the Iraq Museum in
Baghdad was sacked and thousands of valuable antiquities were
stolen. For over five years Bogdanos led a team to recover the
artifacts. Up to 2006, approximately 10,000 artifacts were recovered
through his efforts. Antiquities recovered include the Warka Vase
and The Mask of Warka. Bogdanos co-wrote a memoir with
William Patrick, Thieves of Baghdad: One Marine's Passion for
Ancient Civilizations and the Journey to Recover the World's Greatest
Stolen Treasures. The book chronicles his efforts to recover the
missing Iraqi artifacts. In November 2005, he was awarded a
National Humanities Medal from President George W. Bush for his
efforts to recover the artifacts. He has also received the 2004 Public
Service Award from the Hellenic Lawyers of America, the 2006
Distinguished Leadership Award from the Washington DC
Historical Society, and a 2007 Proclamation from the City of New
York, among other awards.
Deployed to Afghanistan in 2009 with NATO counter-insurgency
forces, he was released back into the Marine Reserves in September
2010, and returned to the District Attorney's Office.
When Cyrus Vance, Jr. became District Attorney in 2010, he
authorized Bogdanos to prosecute antiquities trafficking, but with
no additional resources assigned. For the next six years, he and
Special Agent Brenton Easter, a federal agent with Homeland
Security Investigations, worked dozens of cases, including one of
the largest seizures of stolen antiquities in U.S. history, more than
2,600 idols valued at more than $143 million and seized from
renowned New York dealer Subhash Kapoor who is on trial in
India and awaiting extradition to New York.
By 2017, Bogdanos and Easter were making so many antiquities
trafficking cases that Bogdanos was sleeping in his office. When
supervisors alerted District Attorney Vance, he approved the
creation of the first-of-its-kind Antiquities Trafficking Unit
consisting of prosecutors, federal agents, New York City detectives,
and specialized analysts. Since then, the Unit has grown to 16
personnel. Since 2010, Bogdanos and his team have convicted a
dozen traffickers, seized more than 4,000 antiquities valued at more
than $200 million, and repatriated more than 2,000 antiquities to
almost two dozen countries. Among the seizures was a golden firstcentury-B.C. Egyptian coffin that the Metropolitan Museum of Art
had acquired for $4 million and was made famous when Kim
Kardashian posed for a photo next to it at the 2018 Met Gala.
As a Senior Trial Counsel in the District Attorney's Office,
Bogdanos still prosecutes homicides, what he describes as being
"connected to the worst moment in people's lives."
Bogdanos is also a former middleweight boxer with almost 30
amateur fights and is still boxing, with a record of 10-2 since his
40th birthday. Along with another Assistant District Attorney,
fellow U.S. Marine officer Al Peterson, he co-founded a Charity
Boxing Foundation called Battle of the Barristers that has raised
more than $1 million for wounded veterans and children at risk.
Full Video Coverage of the 34th Annual Leadership 100 Conference at www.L100.org and YouTube/TheLeadership100
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