The presentation will explore the theft and looting of the Iraq Museum in April 2003 through more than one hundred photographs from Afghanistan to Iraq.  Colonel Bogdanos will describe his team’s recovery of tens of thousands of history’s most priceless antiquities, detail the ongoing efforts of the international community, and expose the black market in stolen antiquities that is funding terrorism in Iraq & elsewhere.

Matthew Bogdanos, an Assistant District Attorney in Manhattan—where New York tabloids call him “pit bull" for his relentless prosecution of criminals—is a colonel in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserves, middleweight boxer, and native New Yorker.  Raised waiting tables in his family’s Greek restaurant, he holds advanced degrees in law, classics, and military strategy.  Recalled to active duty after losing his apartment near the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, he received a Bronze Star for counterterrorist operations in Afghanistan and served in the Horn of Africa, before serving multiple tours in Iraq and leading the international investigation into the looting of the Iraq Museum.  He has spoken in more than 150 cities in 18 countries—including to both Houses of British Parliament, to Interpol, and at the Peace Palace in The Hague—and received a 2005 National Humanities Medal from President George Bush for his work recovering Iraq’s priceless treasures, as well as Proclamations from the Cities of New York and Philadelphia.  He has returned to the DA’s Office and continues the hunt for stolen antiquities.

Royalties from Thieves of Baghdad go to the Iraq Museum.

Please RSVP: salvage@law.georgetown.edu