Why Were Roman Coins Seized in Cincinnati ?

Dealers playing the victim are still moaning about a 2014 ICE seizure of 190 coins:. These brain-rot sufferers really do not understand anything, poor souls. Here's the original announcement which got them going:

One hundred and ninety ancient Roman coins that were illegally imported into the United States from the United Arab Emirates were seized by officials from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). The ancient coins were originally detained in March 2014 during a routine inspection at the Port of Cincinnati cargo facility by CBP officers before the investigation was turned over to HSI. The intended recipient told investigators the coins were of Middle Eastern origin based on information received from an overseas seller. CBP officers contacted a coin expert to authenticate the coin’s origins and learned they were late 2nd or 3rd century Roman coins. Authorities subsequently issued a seizure notice to the intended recipient alleging entry of goods by means of false statements. The intended recipient abandoned the claim to the coins, which will now be repatriated to the appropriate country of origin at a later date. The coins have an estimated value of approximately $1,000.

Well, of course determining a 'country of origin' for goods where the paper trails have been deliberately obscured by the sellers is pretty well impossible (barring US waterboarding of a dealer or two, which I would not support). The legible mintmarks on the coins point to some being minted in Antioch (in Roman Syria), but as dealers insistently point out, 'coins circulated widely' and these artefacts could have been dug up on almost any site in the eastern parts of the ancient ('classical') world and items from different sites (note the variation in corrosion products) from different sites amalgamated in a job lot of artefacts orphaned from their paperwork and any context. It is the evil no-questions-asked antiquities trade and dodgy dealers involved in it that have destroyed the context and destroyed the evidence of origins. It seems disingenuous of spokesmen for the same industry now to be creating a fuss about the measures adopted to respond.

Could the coins have been exported to the US by an unnamed seller based, perhaps, in Dubai? How many dealers in dugup antiquities gathered from several regions of the ancient world are there in the UAE, and Dubai in particular? It seems that 'Nafertiti Eastern Sculptures Trading in Dubai' has gone out of business (or underground) since the fuss around Salem Alshdaifat. Who else is active in Dubai and are they ACCG members?

The point is of course that dealer "Dubai Dakhil" (let's call him) exporting antiquities as coming from the UAE as the country of origin when they did not in fact come from there is trying to 'launder' the artefacts that in all likelihood came from one or more other country (for example Syria) - for the export of which he is unable to supply the proper documentation. If he cannot show that the coins arrived  in UAE legally, then he cannot show that he has title to them and therefore cannot show that he is exporting them himself legally. In that case then having been stopped for examination at the US border, they cannot then be allowed to pass onto the US market.

What then to do with them? They cannot be sent back to the dealer who claims 'ownership' but cannot show legal title, they cannot be sent back to the country of origin as that dealer destroyed all evidence of where they came from and how they arrived in the UAE. They cannot stay in the US. Perhaps they should just be destroyed as decontextualised bits of old metal which have no known owner? Perhaps they should be sent to another country to sort out what to do with them after the antiquities trade rendered them orphans? This, in fact is what the US authorities in this case decided to do.