Arrest of Jerusalem antiquities dealers opens a smuggling Pandora’s Box
(Worthy News) – With the opening of the Museum of the Bible in Washington, DC, just around the corner, Chairman of the Board and Hobby Lobby President Steve Green is embroiled in an international antiquities smuggling scandal that is only becoming more fraught.
Early Sunday morning, Israeli police arrested five East Jerusalem residents on suspicions of unreported tax on sales, money laundering, and sales of looted antiquities to Green, to the tune of $22 million between 2010 to 2014, according to the Israel Antiquities Authority.
The Oklahoma-based Hobby Lobby, which has in a settlement agreed to pay some $3 million in fines and to forfeit thousands of ancient artifacts from Iraq, is implicated by US prosecutors of — knowingly or not — participating in a smuggling scheme out of the Middle East. Among other ruses, antiquities dealers forged provenance and intentionally mislabeled imported looted items to the US as “tile samples.” [ Source:Times of Israel (Read More…) ]