ROME, March 29 The activities of Robin Symes, a London antiquities dealer who has done business with many of the world's top collectors, came into sharp focus on Wednesday at the trial of Marion True, a former curator at the J. Paul Getty Museum, and Robert Hecht, an American dealer. In a case that has had wide repercussions for museum collecting, Ms. True and Mr. Hecht are charged with trafficking in objects that officials here contend were illegally removed from Italian soil. In more than four hours of testimony, Peter Watson, a British investigative journalist who is a witness for the prosecution, detailed what he said was Mr. Symes's elaborate use of offshore companies and warehouses to buy and sell ancient artworks. Italians contend that some of these works were illegally excavated and exported. Mr. Symes has not been charged in the case, but Italian prosecutors have been investigating his ties to Ms. True, Mr. Hecht and Giacomo Medici, an Italian art dealer and co-defendant in the case, who has already been convicted. During Ms. True's tenure, the Getty bought millions of dollars' worth of antiquities from Mr. Symes, and Mr. Watson suggested in his testimony that the two became social friends. At one point, the prosecution showed a photograph of a youthful Ms. True with Christo Michailidis, Mr. Symes's companion, on the Greek Island of Paros, where both Mr. Symes and Ms. True owned vacation homes. Mr. Watson told the court that Mr. Michailidis had provided Ms. True with 400,000 to buy the house. "The money was supposed to look like a loan to Ms. True, but it was a gift," he said. He said he received this information in 2003 from Mr. Michailidis's brother-in-law, a Greek shipping magnate. Mr. Watson said he was told that Mr. Michailidis had not been repaid. That testimony seemed to conflict with earlier published accounts, in which Ms. True acknowledged accepting a second 400,000 loan in 1996 from two American collectors, Lawrence and Barbara Fleischman, so she could pay off the first. Ms. True resigned from the Getty last fall after the museum said she had "failed to report certain aspects of her Greek house transaction in violation of Getty policy." The museum said the loan from Mr. Michailidis was a conflict of interest for her because she was doing business with him on the Getty's behalf. A few weeks later, The Los Angeles Times reported the existence of the Fleischman loan, which the Getty also characterized as a conflict of interest for Ms. True. Antiquities donated by the Fleischmans form the core of the Getty's antiquities collection. Mr. Michailidis died in July 1999 after falling down a staircase in a villa in Umbria. Without indicating where the information came from, Mr. Watson testified Wednesday that Mr. Michailidis and Mr. Symes were attending a dinner at the villa given by Shelby White and Leon Levy, American antiquities collectors who were clients of Mr. Symes. In 2001, Mr. Michailidis's family began legal proceedings against Mr. Symes in an effort to reclaim what they argued was his half share of the men's business. The family gave Mr. Watson limited access to photocopies of documents taken from Mr. Symes's files and garbage. But Mr. Watson was not allowed to make copies, so those documents are not available to the Italian court. Italian officials are also investigating the antiquities collection amassed by Ms. White, a trustee of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and her husband, who died in 2003. Ms. White has signaled that she is willing to meet with the Italians to discuss claims that some of her own works were illegally excavated and removed from Italy. The trial resumes next week with testimony from members of Italy's art-theft police.