isis released a video showing its men ransacking mosul's museum desecrating what historians call artifacts from the cradle of civilization we are now talking about the wholesale destruction with huge looting teams sometimes with earth-moving equipment the islamic state has created a ministry of antiquities to industrialize the looting and sell the treasures iraqi officials believe that is could be generating as much as 100 million from the sale and trafficking of antiquities alone antiquities are the one thing that can make its way from the ground in a conflict nation to fifth avenue in new york antiquity theft is nothing new for much of the 19th and 20th centuries fear in the west bothered asking just how ancient objects ended up traveling so far from their homelands there's a good reason why a leading lawyer called the british museum the world's largest receiver of stolen goods antiquity trafficking is big business a booming global trade that continues to devastate the cultural heritage of countries around the world this is the business of crime in this episode we'll be looking at antiquity trafficking a complex web of international crime that connects the theft of ancient artifacts to an underregulated global art market most iraqis when they saw the statue of saddam fall down everybody was elated we were you know happy as can be and then the background museum was loaded we already knew of three masterpieces looted from the galleries the man-sized stone statue a statue base and a large decorated vase bars the individuals were selective and knew precisely what to take when mustafa al-kadimi's plane touched down in baghdad after a july 2021 official visit to the us it carried some unusually valuable cargo on board with the iraqi prime minister were 17 000 archaeological artifacts repatriated after years spent in the u. s displayed in among other venues an evangelical christian museum and an ivy league university it marked a long anticipated homecoming the priceless treasures had been hovered up by enterprising thieves over at least three decades first in the aftermath of the first gulf war in the early 1990s then after the security meltdown that followed the 2003 u. s led invasion [Music] gauging the precise size and value of the illicit antiquities trade isn't easy with estimates ranging from 300 million to 6 billion dollars a year as with many other forms of crime there isn't a dutiful accountant keeping meticulous books even with exact figures proving elusive there are clearly huge profits to be made in a quasi industry where demand is constantly outstripping supply western countries like the united states and the uk are the largest consumers of these kinds of antiquities today the trafficked antiquities market is hardly clandestine instead it functions as a shady opened secret a grain market that stretches across the globe where legitimate institutions and often hyper-rich collectors in the west benefit from the labor of organized criminals in far away nations naturally there has to be a layer of plausible deniability don't ask don't tell think of it like money laundering an artifact has been smuggled from its home country with a taint of theft still on it it may then take a tour around another couple of countries until it's clean enough for the open market we see a lot of trafficking and looting in the middle east particularly countries like syria and yemen but we also see countries like egypt suffering from a major scourge of looting and this is in part because egyptian artifacts are so in demand and recognizable around the world the gold coffin which is believed to have once held the mummy of nedjamonk is now finding its way back to the egyptian people after a seven-year investigation that spanned five countries it is not the protection of our heritage what is the protection of mankind's heritage in 2019 the new york met museum returned a stolen ancient egyptian coffin that had been looted and smuggled out of the country in 2011.
the 2100 year old artifact have been stolen by a global trafficking network using fraudulent documents after being smuggled into germany it crossed the border into france where the museum had paid 3. 2 million dollars to a parisian art dealer it was authorities believed likely one of the hundreds of artifacts looted by the same multinational gang and questions were raised about the museum's own lack of scrutiny when you can have major institutions that are purchasing these types of items without their due diligence it's very difficult to prove that an individual or a private collector is engaging in that due diligence or even aware that they are purchasing something that's looted to be clear in many cases they are aware that they are purchasing looted material but proving that they are aware is a different story though coverage of the issue has intensified over the past decade this hasn't stopped the market from expanding between 2010 and 2014 the illegal antiquities trade rose in the middle east driven largely by bloody conflicts across the region instability is good news for smugglers even if the looting of cultural property is considered a war crime under the 1954 hague convention at the peak of the islamic state's power in iraq and syria the sale of stolen antiquities was second only to oil as the terrorist group's primary source of income the western flow of artifacts was so easy and so prolific that middlemen were openly hawking their wares on facebook prior to the introduction of technology platforms and social media much trafficking took place from person-to-person interaction it was a slower process moving items out of a country into another into a wider market took time and connections but now thanks to global social media platforms like facebook global antiquities traffickers can connect with one another at the click of a button and as a result we're seeing an explosion of this illicit material online global criminality requires a joined up response for many countries particularly those heavily reliant on tourism it isn't just a moral issue but a financial necessity in early 2021 egypt introduced a law punishing antiquity theft with a life sentence and a maximum 5 million dollar fine it remains to be seen what impact this has in a nation where the amount of illegal digs more than doubled in 2020.
