[5][6] The Freeport's origins can be traced back to 1888, but as it expanded in size, it adopted the "opaque traditions of Swiss banking", making it the preferred storage facility for the international elite.

[12] On September 13, 1995, Swiss and Italian law enforcement (Carabinieri) raided Giacomo Medici’s large storage room in a warehouse in Geneva Freeport.

Agents found over 3,800 antiquities, worth an estimated $35 million,[13] many with dirt still attached to them, and documents relating to art dealers and museums in Europe and North America.

[2] In 2013, nine antiquities looted from Palmyra in Syria and ancient sites in Libya and Yemen were seized by Swiss authorities when they were found during a customs inspection at the Freeport.

[19] This opened a debate on the Freeport's role in funding the terrorist activities of groups such as ISIS, which is suspected of depositing looted objects of ancient art in the facility via middlemen.

[21] In January 2016, officers from the Art Crimes squad of the Italian Carabinieri, in collaboration with Swiss authorities, raided a storage unit that British antiquities dealer Robin Symes rented at the Geneva Freeport.

It was found to contain a huge quantity of stolen antiquities, nearly all of which were believed to have been looted by the Medici gang from Etruscan- and Roman-era archaeological sites in Italy and other locations over at least 40 years.

Packed inside 45 crates, investigators discovered some 17,000 Greek, Roman and Etruscan artefacts, including two stunning Etruscan terracotta sarcophagi, topped by painted, life-sized reclining figures; hundreds of whole or fragmentary pieces of rare Greek and Roman pottery, statuary and bas-reliefs: fragments of a fresco from Pompeii; and a marble head of Apollo thought to have been looted from the Baths of Claudius near Rome.

[22][23] In April 2016, Geneva prosecutors opened a criminal probe into the ownership of Modigliani’s “Seated Man with a Cane” in storage at the Freeport, and seized the painting to determine its origins.

It was allegedly looted by the Nazis from its original owner, Parisian art dealer Oscar Stettiner, who passed away before he could retrieve it,[24] and its whereabouts were unknown until it appeared at an auction in 2008 but didn't sell.

Since 2009, Swiss law has required the Freeport's managers to maintain inventories of its contents and the names of its owners, and has given customs officials the power to conduct inspections.

[2] The Swiss Customs Act imposed a six-month time limit on goods stored in the Freeport, forcing its managers to identify owners in the warehouse's inventory records.

[32] Prominent art-world figures have raised concerns that countless and priceless pieces of art are stored away from public view and treated as investments, meaning they may as well not exist.