The AP has a report on the life of an suspected Antiquities Smuggler.

From the AP (via Google News):

Leonardo Patterson made his first archaeological find at age 7 in a yam field in his native Costa Rica — a piece of clay pottery his cousin said could be thousands of years old.

It launched a lifelong fascination with pre-Columbian art, and a career checkered by charges of smuggling and selling forgeries. Patterson has become known to many in the close-knit world of collectors and curators as a wily salesman with a nervous stutter and humble demeanor.

“The guy is legendary in the field,” said Michael Coe, a retired Yale anthropology professor who told authorities that a 1997 Patterson exhibit in Spain included possible fakes. “He has managed to have a career that is just unbelievable.”

In April, Munich police seized more than 1,000 Aztec, Maya, Olmec and Inca antiquities from Patterson after an international investigation and a chase across Europe. Mexico, Peru and Costa Rica say some of the pieces in the exhibit — valued by investigators at more than $100 million — were stolen and are trying to get them back.