Antiquities smuggling ring broken up in Mosul

Mosul is now in Iraqi hands again, and Iraqi authorities have arrested six people involved in smuggling cultural property from eastern Mosul’s Al-Karama district and seized Islamic antiquities and manuscripts. The smuggling ring had exploited ISIL's three-year occupation of Mosul to steal and smuggle antiquities (Serhad Shakir and Mohamed Waleed, 'Antiquities smuggling ring broken up in Iraq's Nineveh', English Haberleri 14th Feb. 2018).

;During this period, from about mid-2014 to mid-2017, gang members had purloined numerous antiquities from different periods of Nineveh’s history, according to [Mosul Police Lieutenant Iyad Hussein] al-Asali . “While gang members were looking for buyers, security forces raided the house they were using and arrested three of them,” he said. “Confessions later obtained from the trio allowed security forces to find and arrest the remaining three gang members, who had numerous stolen antiquities in their possession,” he added.

Collectors, who did you buy those freshly-surfaced items from?