Russian Influence behind Polish Antiquities Legislation Changes?

               Fibulae for sale (OLX)                

The ruling PiS party of Poland has recently announced that it will be creating a special body to examine Russian influences in Polish public life. One of the tasks it should undertake is to investigate the place of the Polish antiquities market in the movement of illicit cultural property moving from Russia and Belarus, as well as the Baltic States and Southeast (occupied) Ukraine to western markets. Traditionally this role was once filled by Vienna, but the groups moving this material seem increasingly to be involving Polish contacts and using routes through Poland.

Indeed, is it a coincidence that a group of renegade Polish metal detectorists, unwilling to accept the need for regulation of the hobby through permits and monitoring is manipulating politicians into passing legislation that will allow 'laundering' of artefacts found by metal detecting in (for example) Ukraine and pass them off as resulting from metal detecting searching in Poland under the aegis of the mobile application currently being developed? Indeed, the more exotic and unusual an artefact is for the region, the greater the Treasure reward the importers can expect.