The Underworld of ISIS Art Smugglers
Two
art traders involved in a trading network that sells millions of dollars worth
of ancient art and artifacts stolen by the Islamic State have shared details
behind how valued pieces of Iraqi and Syrian history went from the hands of
cold-blooded terrorists to collectors in the West.
In
interviews with The Wall Street Journal, Syrian art traders, defectors and
antiquities experts helped explain how the terrorist group profited handsomely
from an international supply chain that is flipping antiquities, relics and
artifacts looted by the group and made lucrative profits possible.