"Recovering the Objects" is not the point.

In a small island peripheral to the Continent, artefact hunters boast that the museums are filled with the artefacts they and their fellows have found and have in many cases have demanded payment for. In Europe meanwhile:

Dan Diffendale @diffendale 18 g.
It's depressing how much of the archaeological collections in many small Italian museums increasingly derives from sequestration of (to-be) trafficked artifacts.

The difference is that in one country they fight looting and smuggling, in the other the police, like the rest of society, turn a blind eye to them. In both cases though, the effects on the archaeological record are the same:

Dan Diffendale @diffendale 18 g.
obviously I'm glad they're being stopped before being smuggled out of the country, or repatriated as the case may be, but usually the damage is done