The Russians are naming names
The Russians report that their agents are observing our cultural heritage antiquities being offered to collectors from various countries, generally through Internet auction sites such as eBay and specialized online stores (vauctions.com, ancients.info, vcoins.com, trocadero.com and auctionata.com). The sites osmanlielsanatlari.com, kaynarcopper.com and ertasantik.com are also used to find buyers. To hid their activities, the thieve use IP-address spoofing, which makes it difficult to identify and determine the actual location of the seller.
It is known that ISIS has been increasingly using social media so as to cut out the middleman and sell artefacts directly to buyers. Preference is given to US dollar transactions, while transactions conducted over the Internet involve the same financial institutions as are involved in transactions for the purchase of weapons and ammunition.
Ambassador Churkin also identified new offices that have recently opened for the purchase and sale of antiquities and listed sites on the Turkish-Syrian border in the administrative district of Akà §akale.
As cultural heritage lawyer |Rick St. Hilaire, notes: "He daringly identified the owner of an antique shop in the town of Kilis as a person "involved in the illicit trade" before proceeding to list individual Turkish transport companies that carried "bulky goods," describing how "[s]muggled artefacts (jewellery, coins, etc.) then arrive in the Turkish cities of Izmir, Mersin and Antalya, where representatives of international criminal groups produce fake documents on the origin of the antiquities."
All of us, because we want to preserve and restore our past for the future will applaud these Russian and Iranians initiatives. And the joining of both countries with many other nations, who under the supervision and direction of the Syrian government, and its remarkable Directorate-General of Antiquities & Museums (DGAM), has for the past five years worked to preserve and protect our cultural heritage which has been under Syrian custody for ten millennia.Franklin Lamb's recent book, Syria's
Endangered Heritage, an International Responsibility to Preserve and Protect
is available on Amazon and other ebook outlets as well as at www.syrian-heritage.com .
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