Smearing the Good name of Collectors

Officials from the State Department, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Smithsonian testified before the House Financial Services’s Terrorism and Illicit Finance Sub-Committee on Friday morning at a hearing dedicated to “ The Exploitation of Cultural Property: Examining Illicit Activity in the Antiquities and Art Trade (Leo Doran, "International Art Market Helps Finance Terrorism, Experts Tell Congress" Inside sources, June 24, 2017.

Brian Daniels, of the Smithsonian Institution and one of the expert witnesses invited to testify, suggested during the hearing that some of the bigger claims of how much wealth ISIS and Al-Qaeda have pulled in from looting art are overblown. Those estimates, which range up into the billions of dollars, are difficult to corroborate, said Daniels. In particular, Daniels argued that the problem is seen too much through the lens of trade, rather than financial crimes such as money laundering.

In other words it is not collectors or respectable antiquities dealers that are the problem, but money launderers. This is the problem that needs to be addressed - rather than acceding to the demands of those that would like to put an end to collecting. More attempts to smear the art market follow:

The panel also touched at times on instances of domestic art smuggling—in particular from traditional Native American burial grounds. Like the international crime rings, the experts indicated that they believe that the domestic illegal art trade is also often linked to organized drug trafficking, particularly in methamphetamine.