Bulgaria Attempts to Recover from Effects of £25m-a-year Antiquities Export Racket

A timely article, coincident with the US ICE announcement the other day (coincidence?): Eric Randolph, 'Land of the tomb raiders: Bulgaria is trying to claw back tens of thousands of ancient artefacts plundered from its historic sites in a £25m-a-year export racket', Independent, Tuesday 10 September 2013. 

Bulgaria’s archaeologists are putting their country on the map of world history, but first they have to stop the mafia stealing its treasures. The illegal diggers come at night with shovels and sacks, hunting through the places where they know the professionals have been. They’re looking for the tonnes of ancient artefacts that lie hidden in Bulgaria’s soil. In the past two decades, Bulgarian law enforcement agencies say this plunder has turned into a €30m-a-year industry for local gangs, putting it a close third behind drugs and prostitution. The artefacts – gold Roman coins, ancient Greek silver, Thracian military helmets – wind up with falsified documents in auction houses in Europe and North America, or increasingly with wealthy Arab and Asian collectors. [...] Police say there are 300 criminal treasure-hunting gangs in Bulgaria at present, but as many as 50,000 people are thought to be involved in illegal digging in some form. Entire villages have been known to take part in some impoverished corners of Bulgaria. Belatedly waking up to the scale of the problem, Bulgarian authorities are trying to claw back some of their lost history from around the world.

Some of the countries where there is a market for such items are doing their best to help out by preventing their citizens buying these antiquities from the smugglers who are part of these organized criminal groups (see the post below about one US lawyer who opposes such moves by his own country). Professor Bozhidar Dimitrov, director of the National Museum of History in Sofia, has spearheaded efforts to reclaim lost relics:

 “The record so far belongs to the Canadians,” said Prof Dimitrov. “A couple of years back, they returned 21,000 artefacts in one go. “The Italians had so much to return that the minister of culture became worried about the cost of the shipment, so he ordered his entire delegation to carry two extra bags of luggage when they came here. He himself showed up at my office with two huge suitcases full of priceless artefacts.”

The current problems which Bulgaria has with antiquity looting are similar in exagerrated form to those from other areas of eastern Europe, formerly part of the Soviet Bloc and its satellites (Poland got through this period with surprising ease): 

The Communist legacy is part of the reason why only a quarter of Bulgaria’s treasures are thought to have been discovered so far. Trapped behind the Iron Curtain for half a century, Bulgaria had few tourists, which meant minimal investment in archaeology and preservation.  This was followed by a decade of political confusion and economic crisis after the fall of Communism, when organised crime groups had almost completely free rein. “In the Nineties, the police could stop only about 10 per cent of the stuff leaving the country,” estimates Prof Dimitrov. “Things have improved a lot. Now they get about 70 to 80 per cent. The police show up all the time with new hordes they have seized from shops in Sofia.” As if to prove the point, the professor cuts the meeting short to receive the deputy director of the police, who says he has 2,000 artefacts to hand over, discovered in the basement of a local antiques store.

It's interesting to compare this report with the claims of US dealers and their lobbyists who claim that Bulgaria is somehow "failing to fight" the illegal trade. I wonder on what they base this information? 'Independent' Journalist Eric Randolph has more details:  

Not all are happy with the government’s efforts to control the trade in historical artefacts, however. Bulgaria’s small shopkeepers complain about restrictions on selling any pre-twentieth century objects. “The police can shut me down for having just one old coin,” says Constantine Georgiev, owner of a small bric-a-brac store in Sofia. “But this just means the trade in antiques is controlled by around 10 very rich guys with political connections. No one goes after the big mafia bosses because they can afford the bribes.” Efforts to increase sentences for illicit smugglers have started to change attitudes towards a crime that was not taken too seriously in the past.  “Many used to see it as a fun adventure,” says Prof Dimitrov. “The men dig while the women do a barbecue. You had police and even priests taking part. Indeed, a 41-year-old priest from the northern city of Vratsa was busted in 2010 after conducting over 1,000 illegal sales of ancient coins and jewellery over the internet. 

Let us just compare that with the statement by Washington lawyer and coin dealers' lobbyist Peter Tompa yesterday that (US dealers should not be penalised for handling smggled material because) "coins can be freely traded" in Bulgaria. There seems to be a discrepancy between what a dealers' lobbyist across the sea says and what a British investigative journalist based in Sofia reports. Who is the more believable source of information? The high demand from outside buyers who will purchase smuggled items no-questions-asked is a destabilising influence and encourages the development of coorruption and finances the organized groups behind it: 

But despite these efforts, experts say that widespread corruption and the high demand from overseas means Bulgaria’s treasures will continue to disappear into private collections, while authorities face a relentless challenge trying to protect over 40,000 known archaeological sites across the country. “We lobbied for an amnesty a few years back so that private owners could declare what they had, on the condition it was not sold or exported. That was one of the first laws that was overturned when GERB [a right-wing Bulgarian political party] took power in 2009,” says Prof Ovcharov. “Rich collectors are a powerful lobby.”

So are their foreign counterrparts, but that does not make them in any way right.  Or their lobbyists any the more honest and well-informed in what they say.  It will be interesting to see whether US (and other) dealers will take part in any attempts to help Bulgaria move forward in their fight with these organized groups and corruption, or whether they will see their interests as lying in harping back about the turbulent past. 


Vignette: Tsar Boris I