Coin Launderer Foiled at Cairo Airport

Laundering coins on the International Market

An Egyptian passenger was caught by the Archaeological Unit at Cairo International Airport trying to smuggle 185 uncleaned Ptolemaic and Graeco-Roman coins to Rome on Tuesday night (Nevine El-Aref, 'Coin smuggler foiled at Cairo Airport', Al-Ahram , Wednesday 6 Aug 2014).

This is precisely the sort of problem the US CCPIA is trying to deal with, freshly dug items being clandestinely removed from the source country and then openly entering the international market in another one - in this case the coins ("first discovered in Egypt") would surface on the Italian market. US coin collectors want the smugglers that provide the international market in this manner not to have any problem supplying the US market in this manner - in other words they want these smugglers to get away scot-free so they can go back for more, and more.  This shows what the coin collectors who so vehemently oppose the application of the CCPIA to coins want to support. Why do they not want the market to be cleaned up?  Are they afraid that if we cut out the illicit and laundered coins, the market will dry up? That's actually what they say - attempting to stop illicit coin transfer is referred by them as "trying to ban the dugup coin trade".