"The Falcon" set a cracking pace across a dusty field in Tboung Khmum, in the east of Cambodia, before stopping and pointing to the dirt at his feet.
"That's the place," he said, wiping the sweat from his brow in the sweltering heat.
On this spot nearly 30 years ago he dug up a rare, gilded bronze Buddhist statue believed to have once belonged to an ancient king.
He could never have imagined the long journey that dirt-encrusted statue would take, or the eye-watering price it would eventually fetch.
In 2011, it became one of three bronzes sold as a set to the National Gallery of Australia for $US1.5 million ($2.3 million). The gallery called them "perhaps its most extraordinary acquisition" that year.
But there had always been secrecy surrounding where the bronzes came from – until now.
Last week, the gallery officially gave the statues back to Cambodia after it was confirmed they came into its collection via a notorious con man.
It's the first time the National Gallery has repatriated Cambodian antiquities.
Now, the ABC's Foreign Correspondent can reveal how these looted artefacts went from a Cambodian field to a display case in one of Australia's most prestigious cultural institutions.
The program embedded with Cambodia's cultural heritage restitution unit, a team of antiquities sleuths tasked with tracing and reclaiming the country's missing treasures, including the National Gallery's bronzes.
And for the first time, one of the looters – codenamed The Falcon to protect his identity – has spoken exclusively to Foreign Correspondent, shedding light on an illegal trade that for decades has plundered the country's cultural heritage.
'It's thousands of crime sites'
Much has changed at the spot where The Falcon unearthed his ancient treasure in 1994.
Back then, it was covered by lush forest. Today, it's a stark and windless rice field baking in the sun.
But a lone tree standing in the field is enough for him to pinpoint the place he started digging three decades ago.
"I was around 35 years old when I was asked to dig," he said. "I was very poor. Our country was still at war."
He had heard there were royal treasures from an ancient kingdom buried around his village and that big money could be made if you could find and sell them.
"I spent more than six months digging almost everywhere in the village … and then I was told about this place," he said.
The statue he found was one of a set of three now known as the "Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara Padmapani with attendants", which came from the Champa Kingdom that once inhabited Vietnam and parts of Cambodia.
His friend, codenamed The Lion, dug up the other two Cham bronzes in the same field.
Together they were paid about $100 in today's money for the haul, with The Falcon pocketing about $25.
For decades, looters raided temples and other sacred sites, then smuggled the statues to shady international art dealers across the border in Thailand.
A global treasure hunt is now underway to track down approximately 4,000 stolen statues and bring them back to Cambodia.
American lawyer Bradley Gordon, who has been appointed by the Cambodian government to lead the country's cultural heritage restitution team, said prized pieces have been coming back from museums and private collections around the world.
"It's an epic mess that we're trying to clean up, it's thousands of crime sites," he told Foreign Correspondent.
"We have experts on stone statues, on bronze statues, historians, anthropologists, conservationists, lawyers – it's an amazing group of talented people and 90 per cent are Cambodian."
The team has now been able to solve the mystery of how the Cham bronzes wound up in Australia, and central to that story is a man known to some in Cambodia as "Dynamite Doug".
'Blood antiquities' and the Dynamite Doug connection
Looting began in Cambodia during French colonial times in the late 1800s, then continued after the country gained independence in 1953.
It escalated during times of conflict, like in the late 1960s when Cambodia was drawn into the Vietnam war, and again during the brutal reign of the Khmer Rouge between 1975 and 1979.
During the 1980s and '90s, war raged on in Cambodia and, according to Bradley Gordon, looting "reached fever pitch." South-East Asian pieces had become big ticket items for shady international art dealers.
"It's astonishing that a group of people profited from this time period by selling antiquities," Mr Gordon said.
"It's not like 10 statues just went out on a truck one day; we're talking thousands and we're talking incredible temples just being ravaged by looting.
"It's very accurate to describe them as blood antiquities."
Many of Cambodia's stolen treasures passed through the hands of one man – Douglas Latchford.
Latchford was a wealthy British businessman who moved to Bangkok in his 20s and rose to become the number one dealer in stolen Cambodian antiquities.
"[Douglas Latchford] was deeply involved in the looting networks that we've been investigating here in Cambodia," Mr Gordon explained.
"He found his way into the auction houses, into Sotheby's and Christie's and into the museums, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the British Museum – all these institutions that have been around for a long time, [that] have credible reputations.
"He was able to sell to them for millions and millions of dollars. He was an incredible con man."
In 2011, Latchford's name came up in stolen statue case US prosecutors were investigating, which eventually led them to open an entire case about him.
They soon discovered he was known in some circles as "Dynamite Doug" for the alleged method his looters used to blow sacred statues from their pedestals.
They also found evidence that he would fake provenance reports and export documents to sell and transport his acquisitions.
He was charged in 2019 with the trafficking of Cambodian antiquities and fraud but died in 2020 before facing trial.
The restitution team has recovered around 300 antiquities so far, with the majority linked to Latchford.
Cambodia's famous temples looted
Former looters such as The Lion and The Falcon have made efforts to right what they see as a historical wrong.
Their testimonies have been crucial in helping the restitution team work out what was stolen and when. Old photos, sketches and diaries are proving invaluable too.
And occasionally, the team finds remnants of sandstone statues the looters left behind.
"The looters were in a rush, these were not precise operations most of the time," Mr Gordon said.
"They left arms behind, they left legs, they left ears, and if we can find any remnants, we can put that in the documentation put together for the evidence."
Investigations have led the team to some of Cambodia's most famous and majestic temples, including the revered Angkor Wat.
All throughout this architectural masterpiece there are bodies without heads and feet without bodies.
The team has also been deep in the jungle of northern Cambodia, to Koh Ker.
In the 10th century, the ancient temples of Koh Ker formed the capital of the great Khmer empire, but today it is one of the country's most heavily looted sites.
Senior investigator Kunthea Chhuon said it was upsetting to see ransacked temples because Cambodians believe the treasures once inside were "not just statues".
"The statues have spirits inside," she said. "Cambodian people respect them as our Gods, our ancestors, so it is very important for them to be returned back to Cambodia.
"My heart fell in love with this project because I think it is very good for my country."
The investigation turns to Australia
It is not just Khmer statues that the team has been in investigating.
As they began forming close relationships with the looters, they learned about the three Cham bronzes.
The Lion and The Falcon have done hours of interviews with the team and taken them to specific sites of interest, including Tboung Khmum, where the bronzes were dug up.
The Lion died following COVID-19 complications in 2021, but The Falcon is still helping the team.
He was stunned when Foreign Correspondent told him the gilded bronze statue he found was in the National Gallery of Australia, and that it paid so much for the set.
"I'm sorry to see it ended up overseas … it belongs in Cambodia," The Falcon said. "I'd be grateful if it could be brought back."
Sometime after the Cham statues were smuggled out of Cambodia and into Thailand, they ended up in the collection of none other than Douglas Latchford.
After Latchford's death, the restitution team began negotiating with his family for the return of the stolen statues in his private collection.
It also managed to convince the family to hand over some of his files, which contained documents relating to the Cham statues.
When the National Gallery purchased the bronzes in 2011, it signed a non-disclosure agreement which meant the seller could not be identified.
"What's sitting on [Latchford's] files is a clear indication that Douglas Latchford was the seller," Mr Gordon said.
Foreign Correspondent has seen some of the documents, including a map of the area where the statues were dug up in Cambodia, the offer document, the invoice, Latchford's email correspondence with a colleague discussing the statues, and an email from the National Gallery's lawyer in 2017 requesting more provenance information from Latchford.
Based on the evidence collected, the Cambodian government requested the return of the Cham bronzes from the National Gallery.
Last week, a delegation from the Cambodian Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts, as well as members of the restitution team, travelled to Canberra for a special hand back ceremony.
The restitution team members wiped away tears as they looked at the statues for the first time.
"I feel so emotional and feel so lucky I can see the real ones," Ms Kunthea said.
The gallery's current director, Dr Nick Mitzevich, said it was "a really important day".
"The works have been proved to have been illegally exported out of the country … so it's only right that these works are returned to the people of Cambodia," Dr Mitzevich said.
He said the gallery was "100 per cent sure they are going back to the right country" after working closely with the restitution team and finding the evidence gathered from the looters to be "irrefutable".
How the National Gallery was duped by a con man
Dr Mitzevich said that when Latchford sold the Cham bronzes to the gallery he insisted upon the non-disclosure agreement in exchange for handing over provenance information.
Latchford then told curators in a series of emails that the works were exported from Vietnam to Hong Kong in 1969 where it resided in a private collection in the 1970s before being purchased by Latchford.
Dr Mitzevich said curators at the time concluded Vietnam did not require export licenses, the Hong Kong collector had since died, and the gallery already had a piece from the Hong Kong collector whom they knew to be genuine.
When asked whether the gallery did checks into the information Latchford provided, Dr Mitzevich said it checked an international loss register, but otherwise “did to some degree accept the documentation that we received”.
Whispers about Latchford's reputation had started spreading around the art world, but he had not yet been publicly named or charged by US prosecutors.
"There were no red flags for this institution with Latchford at the time, and so the gallery did accept the provenance that was provided to us," Dr Mitzevich said.
"He was a dealer who had placed works in some of the world's leading museums.
"[But] of course [he] created a provenance that led the National Gallery to some dead ends, and he was obviously a mastermind at ensuring that those provenance questions didn't find a way through."
Dr Mitzevich said signing a non-disclosure agreement was very unusual and would not have been entered into today.
He hasn't "got to the bottom of why" it was agreed to then.
He admitted the gallery did not do its due diligence but stressed that processes have changed significantly since 2011.
"The National Gallery has learned a significant amount and today we're an institution that prioritises provenance research and authentic, ethical collecting," Dr Mitzevich said.
"I think that it's important to state that at times we've made some missteps, but we feel very confident about the work we're doing today."
The future of the Cham bronzes
At the hand-back ceremony, Dr Mitzevich and the Cambodian Ambassador to Australia, Cheunboran Chanborey, signed a loan agreement to keep the statues at the gallery for the next three years while Cambodia expands its national museum.
They will then return home.
"This is an important step towards rectifying past injustices, reinforcing the value of cultural properties, and more importantly, acknowledging the importance of preserving and protecting cultural heritage," the ambassador said.
Ms Kunthea said she hoped the return of statues would help her country heal and learn.
"It is very important for Cambodia and very good for the new generation to become educated about their culture," she said.
Mr Gordon said he believed the National Gallery had set a standard in the repatriation of stolen antiquities that he hoped other countries would follow.
"I think we are seeing a trend that's going to continue in the next 10, 20 years where many, many objects are going go back to the rightful owners," he said.
"[Our team] has an enormous amount of detective work to do and we have so many clues now and every day we're getting more, so there'll be a a lot more [statues] to come."
Watch 'Treasure Hunters' tonight on Foreign Correspondent at 8pm on ABC TV and iview.