 On December 23, in his boat, the "Hainan", Malraux arrived at Banteay Srei, seized four priceless statues depicting "devata", which he divided into pieces and put into crates, and headed south, intending to ship his cargo to Thailand.Groslier, who had been tipped off, reached Kampong Chnang by car just as Malraux' boat arrived, went on board, identified the "devata" (in falsely-labeled crates), and arranged for the police to arrest the perpetrators as soon as they arrived at Phnom Penh that evening.The incident created an enormous scandal in both colonial Indochina and France itself, despite the fact that Malraux was, at that time, virtually unknown outside French literary circles.