Turkey Arrests 78 in Operation Targeting the Illegal Antiquities Trade

Turkish authorities arrested 78 suspected members of a massive Illegal antiquities trafficking ring and seized over 23,000 artifacts during an operation dubbed “Anatolia” and carried out with the help of law enforcement from Croatia, Serbia and Bulgaria.

Turkish Minister of Culture Mehmet Ersoy, revealed the details of the operation while at a ceremony returning looted Christian relics to Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople, the leader of the Eastern Orthodox Church, Turkey’s state-run news service, Anadolu Agency reported.

Beyond the seized artifacts, the group is believed to have smuggled scores of cultural material to the U.S. and Europe, where auction houses spent some US$3 million to get them into their catalogues.

According to Sam Hardy, a criminologist who focuses on the global illegal antiquities trade, it is such markets in the West which fuel the trade cultural heritage in countries like Turkey and elsewhere in the Middle East.

“Although Turkey does have an internal market as well, it has been and remains a key source country [for smuggled artifacts] because of the intersection of its own history with Western markets' insatiable demand for historic artifacts from the Ancient Near East and Classical Antiquity,” Hardy told OCCRP on Wednesday.

Turkish police conducted raids on 108 addresses in 30 of Turkey’s 81 provinces on Tuesday. In addition to artifacts, they all seized several metal detectors, illegal weapons, hundreds of rounds of ammunition and thousands in cash.

According to Hardy however, that’s just a drop in the water.

“This bust is notable, but Turkey's police, gendarmerie and customs collectively intercept thousands of illicit cultural objects every year,” he said.

“Perhaps the most notable thing about this operation is its targeting of the proceeds of crime, which may prove to be an effective way of targeting organised cultural property criminals,” he explained.

That’s because the proceeds of antiquities trafficking often go on to fund other criminal enterprises, such as drug and arms trafficking.

“Antiquities, artworks (and their forgeries) regularly feature in multi-commodity trafficking alongside narcotics, arms and other contraband,” Hardy said.

The illegal antiquities trade is a multi-billion dollar global industry according to a 2018 report by Standard Chartered Bank

https://www.occrp.org/en/daily/15002-turkey-arrests-78-in-operation-targeting-the-illegal-antiquities-trade

‘Woke’ Gen. Mark Milley, in July: ‘Afghan Security Forces Have the Capacity to … Defend Their Country’

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley told reporters less than four weeks before the Taliban entered Kabul that the local military was fully capable of defending Afghanistan from the insurgent Islamic terrorist militia.

In a press conference on July 21, Milley said:

General Miller and his team, along with CENTCOM and many others in the joint force, have paved the path for a safe, orderly and responsible transition.

…

The Afghan Security Forces have the capacity to sufficiently fight and defend their country, and we will continue to support the Afghan Security Forces where necessary in accordance with the guidance from the president and the secretary of defense.

The future of Afghanistan is squarely in the hands of the Afghan people, and there are a range of possible outcome in Afghanistan. And I want to emphasis repeatedly, and I’ve said this before, a negative outcome, a Taliban automatic military takeover, is not a forgone conclusion. We will continue to monitor the situation closely and make adjustments as necessary.

Milley has become notorious recently for his obeisance to the political left. Last June, he apologized for accompanying President Donald Trump on a walk through Lafayette Square, as officials struggled to restore order to the nation’s capital.

In June, Milley defended the use of Critical Race Theory materials in a suggested reading list for members of the U.S. Navy, saying that such materials may be necessary to understand the “white rage” that he believed motivated the Capitol riot. In July, he dodged questions about a report that he had warned that President Trump might stage a “coup” after the election.

https://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2021/08/15/woke-gen-mark-milley-in-july-afghan-security-forces-have-the-capacity-to-defend-their-country/