Just after the turn of the 19th century, a German naval officer named Johannes Behrens set off on a winding voyage around the Mediterranean, and beyond.
The Bremen-born sailor wasn't just a military man. He seems to have had an uncanny eye for high-quality antiquities. As he traveled, he bought up remarkable treasures: an intricate Roman silver bowl, exquisite Ancient Egyptian carvings, an ornate Greek mask of bronze.
Several were so impressive that they ended up displayed in some of the world's most prestigious museums. From the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York to the Louvre Abu Dhabi, spectacular antiquities were credited to the "Behrens collection."
But new evidence has emerged in recent years that the German sailor never collected the objects attributed to him. In fact, he may never have existed at all.
According to French and U.S. investigators, the objects supposedly bought up by Behrens were actually smuggled by a ring accused of trafficking antiquities out of Egypt.
In late 2023, an elderly art dealer named Serop Simonian, who ran a shop in Hamburg, Germany -- not far from where Behrens was supposedly born -- was arrested and charged in France with trafficking multiple antiquities attributed to the German sailor's collection.
Simonian and other alleged members of the ring have denied the allegations, and the investigation is ongoing. Attempts to reach Simonian through his lawyer were unsuccessful.
Though Simonian's case has been widely reported, a number of objects ostensibly collected by Behrens -- including one which sold for over $200,000 -- have not been publicly identified, OCCRP's partner in the Middle East, Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism (ARIJ), has found.
These objects include a Roman bowl sold by Christie's auction house in 2010, a Greek marble carved stone slab sold by Christie's in 2012, and a Greek-Roman bronze mask acquired by Italy's Sorgente Group Foundation in 2010.