Antiquities plundered from heritage sites in Iraq and Syria are appearing for sale on eBay, as Islamic State militants make money from trading some of the world’s most important relics.
Ceramics, coins and jewellery looted by the jihadists frequently pass via criminal gangs to collectors in the Gulf, often being sold off on trading websites. Larger items have disappeared into storage while traders prepare to release them on the open market in Europe, Asia and the US.
The trade in antiquities is a lucrative business for Isis and is believed to be worth tens of millions of pounds. As well as its members selling stolen artefacts, the group has levied a “tax” on the spoils of war in territory it controls, ensuring its central administration benefits financially from anything taken from historic sites.
With the Islamists under growing pressure from the Iraqi army, a scorched earth frenzy of looting and destruction is under way in one of the cradles of civilisation. The desecration by Islamic State fighters of Assyrian treasures at Mosul, Nimrud and Dur-Sharrukin has caused international outrage. Ban Ki Moon, the UN secretary-general, has condemned the rampage as a war crime.
The jihadists have exploited every available resource to make money in the territory that has fallen under their control in Syria and Iraq since 2012. Antiquities, like oil, weapons and even people, are a commodity traded to finance terrorism.
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“We are seeing a more systematic approach to looting under Isis, linked to generating revenue,” said Axel Plathe, director of Unesco’s Iraq office. “Excavations at the sites have increased and we believe trafficking is on the rise but without access to the sites we still don’t know the true scale.”
Five of six Unesco heritage sites in Syria have been seriously damaged by looting. At Apamea, in western Syria, entire Roman mosaics were ripped up by bulldozer. It is claimed that Isis takes requests from dealers in neighbouring countries, looting and delivering antiquities to order.
The volume of artefacts flooding out of the conflict zone is so great that it has forced down prices in some sectors of the market. With millions of people displaced by the war, it is easy for smaller items to move across borders. Data from US customs shows that antiquities imported to the United States from Iraq and Syria doubled between 2011 and 2013.
“The market for coins has fallen. You can buy ancient coins minted in Syria for between $20 and $100 online,” said professor Erin Thompson, a specialist in art crime at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, New York. “It is extremely difficult to tell if individual items were looted recently, long ago or come from a legitimate source. But when you see items from Apamea being sold on eBay, it gives a good indication that something is up.”
A spokesman for eBay said that it paid attention to the authorities. “We remove items from sale based on their advice, support law enforcement investigations and are always prepared to investigate listings causing concern.”
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The coins and other trinkets available online offer a mere glimpse of the problem. Using smuggling routes into Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey, the Islamists work with organised crime, packing ancient treasures in with cargoes of oil, drugs and weapons to move them across borders.
“The deck is stacked against enforcement. It is very easy for antiques to enter the legitimate market after a few transactional steps,” Professor Thompson said. “In the West, items disappear for enough time for the heat to die down and documents to be forged. Overlapping laws and regulations make it easy to forge enough paperwork to disguise an item’s origin.”
International organisations have struggled to stem the tide. Assyrian tablets looted from the tomb of the Prophet Jonah before it was blown up by Isis in July were later recovered in Europe but such successes are rare.