Supplying the British and German Antiquities Market

Bulgarian officials have broken up an organized criminal group spanning Europe involved in moving antiquities undetected from the source country to foreign markets (AFP 'Bulgaria recovers over 5,000 antiquities in joint anti-smuggling op with Turkey and France', Daily Sabah, May 26th 2017).

There were arrests in France and Turkey as well as in Bulgaria and that some of the detained gang members were from France and elsewhere. The artefacts came mainly from sites in Bulgaria and Turkey and were smuggled out to be sold in Western Europe, mostly in France, Germany and Britain.

by moving them across the borders by various means, the gang was 'laundering' the actual origins and nature of the material - whereby it could then be bought and sold on western European markets with they-can't-touch-you-for-it impunity.