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THE EXPLOITATION OF CULTURAL 

PROPERTY: EXAMINING ILLICIT 

ACTIVITY IN THE ANTIQUITIES 

AND ART TRADE 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON TERRORISM 

AND ILLICIT FINANCE 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON FINANCIAL SERVICES 

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

JUNE 23, 2017 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Financial Services 

Serial No. 115–23 

( 

(II) 

HOUSE COMMITTEE ON FINANCIAL SERVICES 

JEB HENSARLING, Texas, Chairman 

PATRICK T. MCHENRY, North Carolina, 

Vice Chairman 

PETER T. KING, New York 

EDWARD R. ROYCE, California 

FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma 

STEVAN PEARCE, New Mexico 

BILL POSEY, Florida 

BLAINE LUETKEMEYER, Missouri 

BILL HUIZENGA, Michigan 

SEAN P. DUFFY, Wisconsin 

STEVE STIVERS, Ohio 

RANDY HULTGREN, Illinois 

DENNIS A. ROSS, Florida 

ROBERT PITTENGER, North Carolina 

ANN WAGNER, Missouri 

ANDY BARR, Kentucky 

KEITH J. ROTHFUS, Pennsylvania 

LUKE MESSER, Indiana 

SCOTT TIPTON, Colorado 

ROGER WILLIAMS, Texas 

BRUCE POLIQUIN, Maine 

MIA LOVE, Utah 

FRENCH HILL, Arkansas 

TOM EMMER, Minnesota 

LEE M. ZELDIN, New York 

DAVID A. TROTT, Michigan 

BARRY LOUDERMILK, Georgia 

ALEXANDER X. MOONEY, West Virginia 

THOMAS MacARTHUR, New Jersey 

WARREN DAVIDSON, Ohio 

TED BUDD, North Carolina 

DAVID KUSTOFF, Tennessee 

CLAUDIA TENNEY, New York 

TREY HOLLINGSWORTH, Indiana 

MAXINE WATERS, California, Ranking 

Member 

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York 

NYDIA M. VELA ́ ZQUEZ, New York 

BRAD SHERMAN, California 

GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York 

MICHAEL E. CAPUANO, Massachusetts 

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri 

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts 

DAVID SCOTT, Georgia 

AL GREEN, Texas 

EMANUEL CLEAVER, Missouri 

GWEN MOORE, Wisconsin 

KEITH ELLISON, Minnesota 

ED PERLMUTTER, Colorado 

JAMES A. HIMES, Connecticut 

BILL FOSTER, Illinois 

DANIEL T. KILDEE, Michigan 

JOHN K. DELANEY, Maryland 

KYRSTEN SINEMA, Arizona 

JOYCE BEATTY, Ohio 

DENNY HECK, Washington 

JUAN VARGAS, California 

JOSH GOTTHEIMER, New Jersey 

VICENTE GONZALEZ, Texas 

CHARLIE CRIST, Florida 

RUBEN KIHUEN, Nevada 

KIRSTEN SUTTON MORK, Staff Director 

(III) 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON TERRORISM AND ILLICIT FINANCE

STEVAN PEARCE, New Mexico Chairman 

ROBERT PITTENGER, North Carolina, Vice 

Chairman 

KEITH J. ROTHFUS, Pennsylvania 

LUKE MESSER, Indiana 

SCOTT TIPTON, Colorado 

ROGER WILLIAMS, Texas 

BRUCE POLIQUIN, Maine 

MIA LOVE, Utah 

FRENCH HILL, Arkansas 

TOM EMMER, Minnesota 

LEE M. ZELDIN, New York 

WARREN DAVIDSON, Ohio 

TED BUDD, North Carolina 

DAVID KUSTOFF, Tennessee 

ED PERLMUTTER, Colorado, Ranking 

Member 

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York 

JAMES A. HIMES, Connecticut 

BILL FOSTER, Illinois 

DANIEL T. KILDEE, Michigan 

JOHN K. DELANEY, Maryland 

KYRSTEN SINEMA, Arizona 

JUAN VARGAS, California 

JOSH GOTTHEIMER, New Jersey 

RUBEN KIHUEN, Nevada 

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts 

(V) 

C O N T E N T S 

Page 

Hearing held on: 

June 23, 2017 .................................................................................................... 1 

Appendix: 

June 23, 2017 .................................................................................................... 23 

WITNESSES 

FRIDAY, JUNE 23, 2017 

Daniels, Brian I., Research Associate, Smithsonian Institution .......................... 5 

Grunder, Alyson, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, U.S. Department of State ................................. 3 

Villanueva, Raymond, Assistant Director for International Operations, U.S. 

Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Homeland Security Investigations, 

U.S. Department of Homeland Security ............................................................. 7 

APPENDIX 

Prepared statements: 

Daniels, Brian I. ............................................................................................... 24 

Grunder, Alyson ................................................................................................ 28 

Villanueva, Raymond ....................................................................................... 39 

(1) 

THE EXPLOITATION OF CULTURAL 

PROPERTY: EXAMINING ILLICIT 

ACTIVITY IN THE ANTIQUITIES 

AND ART TRADE 

Friday, June 23, 2017 

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON TERRORISM

AND ILLICIT FINANCE, 

COMMITTEE ON FINANCIAL SERVICES, 

Washington, D.C. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:15 a.m., in room 

2128, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Stevan Pearce [chairman of the subcommittee] presiding. 

Members present: Representatives Pearce, Pittenger, Rothfus, 

Messer, Tipton, Poliquin, Hill, Emmer, Zeldin, Davidson; Perlmutter, Maloney, Himes, Foster, Kildee, Sinema, Vargas, 

Gottheimer, and Kihuen. 

Also present: Representative Royce. 

Chairman PEARCE. The Subcommittee on Terrorism and Illicit 

Finance will come to order. 

Without objection, the Chair is authorized to declare a recess of 

the subcommittee at any time. Also, without objection, members of 

the full Financial Services Committee who are not members of the 

Subcommittee on Terrorism and Illicit Finance may participate in 

today’s hearing. 

Today’s hearing is entitled, ‘‘The Exploitation of Cultural Property: Examining Illicit Activity in the Antiquities and Art Trade.’’ 

I now recognize myself for 2 minutes to give an opening statement. 

Most of the statement is going to be simply presented into the 

record, but just to talk about the nature of the sale of historical artifacts, archaeological artifacts—the ISIS groups are now destroying entire cultural properties and putting them on the market for 

sale. Many times, the money goes into terrorism. That is what we 

are here to discuss today. The rest of my statement will be just 

printed into the record. 

I now yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Colorado, Mr. Perlmutter. 

Mr. PERLMUTTER. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. 

History has shown that art and cultural antiquities have always 

been trafficked due to their value. Trafficked. Trafficked. Sorry. 

Trafficked. Due to their value. Sorry about that. I am going to start 

over. 

2 

Is that okay, Mr. Chairman? Can I start that over? 

Chairman PEARCE. I will yield you an additional 5 minutes. It 

looks like you are going to take them. 

Mr. PERLMUTTER. In fact, I am on TV. 

History has shown that art and cultural antiquities have always 

been trafficked due to their value. The Nazis famously stole countless works of art during World War II, which will never fully be 

recovered. We know that war and chaos create instability and an 

environment where cultural heritage sites and antiquities are easily pillaged. 

According to INTERPOL, the black market in works of art is becoming as lucrative as those for drugs, weapons, and counterfeit 

goods. Evidence suggests some 50,000 to 100,000 works of art are 

stolen each year worldwide. Not surprisingly, only about 10 percent 

of stolen art is recovered, and successful prosecution occurs even 

less frequently. We must give credit to U.S. law enforcement agencies which, from all accounts, appear to be working collaboratively 

with each other as well as international bodies in the private sector 

to address this problem. 

I would hope that the U.S. Government continues to make the 

prevention of illegal trafficking of art a priority and encourages 

strong interagency efforts. Some of the questions I hope we can answer today are: How can we better regulate marketplaces where 

these valuable pieces of art are exchanged? Who are the buyers of 

stolen art, and how can we track them better? What steps can be 

taken to better safeguard works of art and vulnerable cultural 

sites? And how are funds related to these antiquities being used to 

underwrite terrorist organizations? 

I look forward to learning more from our witnesses, and I yield 

back, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman PEARCE. The Chair yields 1 minute to the gentleman 

from North Carolina, Mr. Pittenger. 

Mr. PITTENGER. Mr. Chairman, and Mr. Ranking Member, thank 

you for hosting this important hearing today relative to the illicit 

antiquities trade and how it funds terror. 

As you know, last year the Task Force to Investigate Terrorism 

Financing held a similar hearing on this matter. And I am pleased 

that our new subcommittee is continuing our work on this issue. 

The United States Government must posture strongly against 

any and all financing methods for ISIS. Antiquities trafficking is no 

exception. Not only does this practice provide ISIS with a steady 

stream of material support, but it also devastates priceless historical locations throughout Iraq and Syria. We must create an enforcement and an investigative structure that fits to the antiquities 

industry and that is strong enough to impact ISIS resourcing. 

Mr. Chairman, I look forward to working with you and your staff 

to promote an effective sanctions policy that puts an end to ISIS 

and its usage of antiquities trafficking to fund terror. 

I yield back. 

Chairman PEARCE. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

Today, we welcome the testimony of our witnesses. First, we 

have Ms. Alyson Grunder. Ms. Grunder is the Deputy Assistant 

Secretary for Policy in the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs at the U.S. Department of State. Ms. Grunder is a veteran 

3 

foreign service officer with 26 years of experience in policy formulation and advancement through bilateral and multilateral engagement, international program development and management grants, 

and budget oversight and evaluation performance measures. From 

2014 to 2015, Ms. Grunder served as Minister Counselor for Public 

Affairs at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, leading the mission strategic communications in public diplomacy outreach efforts in the 

wake of the 2014 incursions of ISIS into Iraq and Syria. 

Dr. Brian Daniels is a Research Associate at the Smithsonian Institution, where he pursues his scholarly work about cultural property protection, the antiquities trade, and the intentional destruction of cultural and religious sites during conflict. Dr. Daniels is 

also the Director of Research and Programs for the Penn Cultural 

Heritage Center at the University of Pennsylvania Museum. Also, 

he is concerned with the preservation of indigenous heritage, and 

has worked for over 18 years with Native American communities 

in the United States on issues related to political sovereignty, cultural repatriation, and heritage preservation. Dr. Daniels holds a 

Ph.D. in anthropology and history from the University of Pennsylvania; an M.A. in history from the University of Pennsylvania; and 

a B.A. and an M.A. in anthropology from San Francisco State University. 

Mr. Raymond Villanueva is the Assistant Director for International Operations, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, 

Homeland Security Investigations, U.S. Department of Homeland 

Security. He is responsible for a budget of more than $160 million 

and the operation and oversight of 62 offices in 46 countries, 8 Department of Defense liaison offices with over 400 personnel. Mr. 

Villanueva has served in numerous key positions, including group 

supervisor for the Financial Crimes and Asset Forfeiture and Removal Group in Buffalo, New York; section chief for the Illicit Finance and Proceeds of Crime Unit in Washington, D.C.; unit chief 

for the Trade Transparency Unit in Washington, D.C.; assistant 

special counsel agent in charge for the San Juan office; and most 

recently, deputy assistant director for HSI International Operations. 

Each of you is going to be recognized for 5 minutes to give an 

oral presentation of your testimony. And without objection, each of 

your written statements will be made a part of the record. 

Ms. Grunder, you are now recognized for 5 minutes. 

STATEMENT OF ALYSON GRUNDER, DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR POLICY, BUREAU OF EDUCATIONAL AND CULTURAL AFFAIRS, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE 

Ms. GRUNDER. Thank you, Chairman Pearce, Ranking Member 

Perlmutter, and members of the Subcommittee on Terrorism and 

Illicit Finance, for inviting me and my colleagues from DHS and 

the Smithsonian to testify this morning on the topic of illicit trade 

in cultural property by terrorists and criminal groups. 

Earlier, I submitted detailed written testimony on the State Department’s efforts over decades to reduce the pillage and trafficking 

of cultural property. This work is mandated by multiple U.S. laws 

and U.N. conventions related to cultural property protection. 

4 

The Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, or ECA, has the 

lead on cultural heritage protection and preservation for the State 

Department through its Cultural Heritage Center. 

The 1983 Convention on Cultural Property Implementation Act, 

or CPIA for short, implements obligations of the United States 

under the 1970 UNESCO Convention on the means of prohibiting 

and preventing the illicit import, export, and transfer of ownership 

of cultural property. The CPIA provides a general legal framework 

by which the United States Government can combat pillage and 

trafficking of cultural property through bilateral agreements. These 

agreements or memoranda of understanding impose import restrictions on certain categories of archaeological and ethnological material determined to be in jeopardy of pillage. 

Import restrictions are intended to reduce incentives for looting 

and trafficking by keeping looted material out of the U.S. art and 

antiquities market, which is the world’s largest. To date, pursuant 

to the CPIA, we have concluded bilateral agreements with 16 countries and implemented import restrictions on an emergency basis, 

pursuant to legislation enacted by Congress in 2004 and 2016, respectively, for Iraq and Syria. 

In addition to negotiating bilateral agreements to protect cultural 

property, the State Department serves a coordinating role for the 

interagency. We convene the Cultural Heritage Coordinating Committee, or CHCC, consistent with the sense of Congress in the 2016 

Protect and Preserve International Cultural Property Act and 

chaired by the ECA assistant secretary. The CHCC includes senior 

representatives from the Departments of Homeland Security, Interior, Defense, and Justice, including the FBI, as well as the Smithsonian Institution. 

ECA also chairs the Cultural Antiquities Task Force, or CATF, 

established by the Department in 2004 at the direction of Congress, 

and now a working group of the CHCC. Originally charged with responding to looting in Iraq and Afghanistan, its mandate has been 

expanded to combat antiquities traffic and looting of archaeological 

sites around the world by identifying and supporting effective law 

enforcement, as well as diplomatic and training programs. 

CATF concluded its most recent program, a training for 25 Customs and Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in April of this year, which included a full day at the 

Smithsonian’s Museum Conservation Institute, where these agents 

had hands-on exposure to the cultural property and artifacts that 

are typically trafficked. 

With our interagency colleagues, the State Department has also 

been active in international fora on cultural heritage matters. 

March was a banner month for cultural heritage protection with 

the unanimous adoption and U.S. cosponsorship of U.N. Security 

Council Resolution 2347, the first Security Council resolution devoted to cultural heritage protection in conflict situations. 

In addition, Acting Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and 

Public Affairs Bruce Wharton led the U.S. delegation to the first 

G7 Cultural Ministerial in Florence, Italy, which was an important 

meeting of significant market countries at which cooperation on 

cultural heritage preservation was a primary topic of discussion. 

5 

Yet the destruction of cultural patrimony at the hands of terrorists continues. For more than 800 years, the al-Nuri mosque, with 

its distinctive leaning minaret, stood as a testament to the cultural 

heritage of the city of Mosul in Iraq. This week, ISIS blew up the 

mosque and its famous minaret destroying these ancient edifices in 

an instant. 

We strongly condemn this despicable act, which only further 

proves that the terrorists have no respect for Iraq’s identity, culture, and religion. The United States will continue to stand with 

the Iraqi people, the free people of Syria, and our partners around 

the world in our shared fight against ISIS until it is defeated. 

I am happy to answer any questions that you may have. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Grunder can be found on page 

28 of the appendix.] 

Chairman PEARCE. Thank you very much. 

Dr. Daniels, you are now recognized for 5 minutes. 

STATEMENT OF BRIAN I. DANIELS, RESEARCH ASSOCIATE, 

SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION 

Mr. DANIELS. Chairman Pearce, Ranking Member Perlmutter, 

and distinguished members of the subcommittee, thank you for the 

opportunity to appear before you today to discuss criminal and terrorist groups’ use of the illicit antiquities trade. I study the subject 

as a Research Associate at the Smithsonian Institution, and I 

would like to highlight a few key points from my submitted testimony. 

There is now growing concern and compelling evidence that archaeological site looting is implicated in the financing of organized 

criminal activity and other terrorist networks. It is my view that 

these developments may represent a recent innovation and a restructuring of the overall antiquities and art trade. 

For much of the past 50 years, the illicit antiquities trade has 

involved regional networks of looters, intermediaries who purchase 

from looters, distributors who purchase from intermediaries, and 

collectors in the United States and Western Europe. These networks assert as stable, hierarchical, and functional multi-decade 

supply chains. Existing laws in the United States, such as the Convention on Cultural Property Implementation Act of 1983, and current law enforcement responses are oriented toward identifying, 

forfeiting, and repatriating artifacts that are traded through these 

illicit networks. 

In recent years, reports have linked criminal and terrorist groups 

to antiquities sales more directly. Some of these accounts are more 

credible than others. Commentators have implicated members of 

the Haqqani Network, which is allied with the Taliban and alQaida, in collecting protection money from traffickers moving 

looted artifacts from Afghanistan into Pakistan. 

There have also been suggestions of links between the insurgency following the second Gulf War and the illicit antiquities 

trade in Iraq. Archaeological site looting began early in the Syrian 

civil war and has been widespread in regions under the control of 

the Assad regime and in areas held by various rebel groups. 

Since 2014, more attention has been given to the activities of 

Daesh in Syria and Iraq. Although media stories have attributed 

6 

Daesh’s income from the illicit antiquities trade to monetary figures that strain all reasonable belief, this hype should not distract 

us from the fact that looted antiquities have been found in the possession of Daesh leaders and militants with documentation about 

their direct involvement in the trade. 

Additionally, in late 2016, the Italian Government confirmed that 

Daesh had expanded its organized looting activity into Libya as 

part of a collaborative enterprise with the Calabrian mafia. 

How might traditional supply chains for the antiquities trade 

change in response to the interest of criminal and terrorist groups? 

We would expect the looters to remain the same but the intermediaries purchasing antiquities from those looters to be different. 

These buyers are likely to be opportunistic and to treat antiquities 

as a resource similar to other illicitly trafficked conflict resources, 

such as diamonds, oil, and coltan. We would also anticipate that 

their participation would vary according to the underlying market 

value of the antiquities, access to distributors, collector demand, 

and the perceived and actual success of international efforts to restrict the sale of illicitly trafficked antiquities on legal art markets. 

It is also important to note that the association between archaeological site looting and criminal groups is not only an international problem. In the United States, Native American archaeological sites are targeted by looters, particularly in the Southwest, 

who are searching for pottery and other materials for sale to intermediaries. 

At the border of Oregon and California where I conduct an archaeological project, recent prosecutions broke up a criminal gang 

selling methamphetamines and looted archaeological material. At 

present, we do not have sufficient consultation with Tribal communities or the basic research completed to understand how these domestic illicit networks might operate in a transnational context. 

In summary, there is good reason to suspect that the illicit antiquities trade is going through a reconfiguration that involves the integration of organized criminal networks and terrorist groups. Unlike the more traditional illicit antiquities trade, which archaeologists have known well, these developments require additional study 

and interdisciplinary collaboration with criminologists and political 

scientists, who are more familiar with research about illicit criminal networks and terrorists. 

In an effort to develop precisely these collaborations, a group of 

15 U.S. international universities and museums came together to 

form the Conflict Culture Research Network. I coordinate this 

project, and the National Science Foundation supported its planning. Our knowledge about the illicit antiquities trade, as well as 

the amount of funding earned by criminal and terrorist actors from 

it, will only improve as additional research is done. 

I am happy to answer any questions you may have. Thank you 

very much. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Daniels can be found on page 24 

of the appendix.] 

Chairman PEARCE. Thank you, Dr. Daniels. 

And Mr. Villanueva, you are now recognized for 5 minutes. 

7 

STATEMENT OF RAYMOND VILLANUEVA, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR FOR INTERNATIONAL OPERATIONS, U.S. IMMIGRATION 

AND CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT, HOMELAND SECURITY INVESTIGATIONS, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY 

Mr. VILLANUEVA. Good morning, Chairman Pearce, Ranking 

Member Perlmutter, and distinguished members of the subcommittee. Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you 

today to discuss Immigration and Customs Enforcement Homeland 

Security Investigations’, what we refer to as efforts to protect cultural property, art, and antiquities, and to mitigate their trafficking both into and out of the United States. 

Before I move any further, the men and women of ICE extend 

our best wishes and stand with the Members of Congress as our 

Nation was confronted with the awful occurrence last week. 

This morning, I would like to describe HSI’s cultural property, 

arts, and antiquities efforts, also known as our CPAA program, and 

discuss the important collaboration with our partners on this issue. 

Lastly, I would like to highlight some of our cultural property 

cases. 

I am often asked, why is HSI involved with CPAA? There are a 

couple of reasons for that. Federal customs law prohibits smuggling 

and trafficking of all merchandise to include CPAA. Additionally, 

HSI’s border authority provides us with a responsibility and the 

unique tools to take a lead role in investigating crimes involving 

the import, export, and distribution of stolen or looted cultural 

property. 

As the largest investigative agency within DHS, HSI works with 

Tribal, Federal, State, and local law enforcement, private institutions, intergovernmental organizations, and foreign governments 

on these cases. We also work with the Department of Justice and 

other competent authorities to prosecute the individuals and organizations responsible for these crimes. 

To ensure the appropriate effort on investigating these crimes, 

we established the CPAA program based in our Office of International Operations. The program has a three-part mission. The 

first one is training and education. As Ms. Grunder mentioned, we 

actually partner with the Department of State, and the Smithsonian Institution, and we have trained more than 400 law enforcement professionals, including HSI special agents; Customs and 

Border Protection, or CBP officers; prosecutors; interagency partners; and foreign law enforcement officers on the preservation, protection, and investigation of cultural property. 

The second one is investigations support. The CPAA program 

helps identify subject matter experts to authenticate items that 

might have cultural and religious significance and acts as a liaison 

to the INTERPOL, FBI, and other law enforcement agencies. 

Through the program, we support over 6,000 special agents, HSI 

special agents, in more than 200 domestic offices throughout the 

United States. But we also work through our network of international offices at 67 embassies and consular offices throughout the 

world where our investigators collaborate with partners, such as 

the Carabinieri Tutela del Patrimonio Culturale, which is Italy’s 

force responsible for combatting arts and antiquities crimes. 

8 

And third is the repatriation. The CPAA program facilitates the 

legal forfeiture process and eventual repatriation of cultural items 

seized as a result of HSI investigations to the rightful owners. 

Whether through a simple exchange, or a grand ceremony held at 

the embassies here in Washington, D.C., these events highlight the 

stories behind the objects themselves as well as the women and 

men who brought the criminals to justice. 

Since 2007, HSI, in coordination with CBP, the Department of 

State has returned more than 8,000 historical objects or artifacts 

to more than 30 countries around the world. One of our largest cultural property efforts is Operation Hidden Idols led by one of our 

two specialized teams located in New York and Los Angeles. The 

case began in 2007 out of our New York team and has resulted in 

the seizure of over 3,000 artifacts, 6 arrests, 5 convictions, and the 

execution of more than 50 search warrants. 

Thank you again for the opportunity to testify, and for your continued support not only of HSI but of the law enforcement mission 

as a whole. We remain committed to working with this committee 

and our partners to mitigate the trafficking of cultural property, regardless of the source. 

And finally, I would like to direct your attention to the pictures 

that provide some examples of the incredible pieces of history we 

have seized and properly returned. Thank you very much, and I 

will be happy to answer any questions you may have. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Villanueva can be found on page 

39 of the appendix.] 

Chairman PEARCE. Thank you, Mr. Villanueva. 

I now yield myself 5 minutes for questions. 

So if I were going to make this more personal, to give the example of, about 5 years ago I received a call from a good friend of 

mine who was one of the officers in one of the Tribes in New Mexico. While surfing the internet, he had come across a mask, a cultural mask that had come from his Tribe 150, 200 years before, and 

so he went online and bought it. About $23,000, I think was the 

purchase price. There was a second one in the next lot. Being on 

an Indian reservation, the internet went down and he missed the 

second one. 

Now, his description to me about the effect is what really caught 

my attention, that he and his wife had lost a child in childbirth, 

and he said when the internet went down, losing that second article was equivalent, and made him feel as bad as when he lost the 

child in childbirth. So then it began to penetrate that we need to 

be doing more. 

So, Mr. Villanueva, how long does it take to track and prosecute 

a case, just a simple case, just roughly? And we have a lot of questions here, so— 

Mr. VILLANUEVA. Sir, thank you for the question. All cases are 

different. We look at cases on a case-by-case basis. These cases, 

when we talk about cultural property, arts and antiquities, and following the explanation of Dr. Daniels, which is very pointed, these 

organizations are extremely compartmentalized from the looters to 

the intermediaries, and they can be quite complicated. 

Chairman PEARCE. Complicated in years, is kind of what I want 

to hear. 

9 

Now, say the top left artifact there, what is the value on that? 

Mr. VILLANUEVA. Sir, as far as the values, I have to say we do 

use a value system, but it is actually for the legal side of it, whether we are going to do— 

Chairman PEARCE. I understand. I am trying to get to the incentive. What is the financial incentive? 

Dr. Daniels, do you have an opinion about what something like 

that would cost on the black market? 

Mr. DANIELS. It depends on which level of the market that it is 

actually being trafficked. An object like that at the top left might 

be worth in the tens of thousands of dollars on the black market. 

Chairman PEARCE. Okay. So you have, basically, rights and title. 

Once the thing is in trade back and forth, it can stay in trade in 

a particular market for years. Is there any way to regulate that 

particular transfer back and forth? Is it being regulated now? 

And, Mr. Villanueva, and I would guess that Ms. Grunder, you 

may have an opinion on this. 

Mr. VILLANUEVA. Do you mind repeating the question, sir? 

Chairman PEARCE. Yes. So once an article has been acquired and 

sold into a market, it can then be traded back and forth between 

collectors who know each other and never leave the country. Is 

there any way to regulate that chain of ownership right now? 

Mr. VILLANUEVA. So if that piece was actually imported into the 

United States— 

Chairman PEARCE. No, I didn’t say that. If it just stays out there 

circulating in a country, no way to track—people are actually identifying it, they are insuring it, they put it on their inventory, but 

there is no way to track it, is there? 

Mr. VILLANUEVA. To your point, you are absolutely correct. If the 

piece is outside of the United States, our ability to track that as 

U.S. law enforcement is limited. We then rely on the art markets, 

the vendors, and the supply chain to notify law enforcement of the 

existence of the piece. But to your point, sir, you are correct. 

Chairman PEARCE. Ms. Grunder, very quickly, if you could address that, if you have an opinion. 

Ms. GRUNDER. Primarily in the area of training and building 

awareness of the illicit trade, and we work very closely with DHS 

on that sort of activity. 

Chairman PEARCE. Okay. So the stimulation is always money, 

right? I read your testimony, and we are talking about focusing on 

repatriation. Sometimes we focus on prosecution, but it seems to 

me that the better—just my perspective—way is to affect the value. 

So I imagine that open sourcing, just people out there who are 

aware that a property is being destroyed and taken, if they had 

some way to enter into a database, block chain analysis or whatever it is, that this—we see this property being taken, they are not 

even in the product distribution, anything like that, but then you 

can imagine that if we appeal to the collectors, surely one out of 

100 would have some sort of moral sense that, I just can’t let it go 

by that, I have been approached to buy something I think is illegal. 

They just enter that into the system, the system begins to identify, 

just maybe scattered here, there, down the future 5 years, ooh, 

here it is again. Now we see that somebody reported it back here. 

10 

It surfaced briefly here, it is there, but each one of those identification points drives the value down. 

If you can affect the value, people are less likely to get in. If they 

don’t think they can get their million bucks back, they are not 

going to put a million bucks into a very significant piece. So I just 

think that we have to be thinking at least in some way to interdict 

the value. That is going to be much easier than the prosecution; 

it is going to be much easier than the inventory tracking. So let’s 

think more about it. 

My time has expired. I recognize the gentleman from Colorado, 

Mr. Perlmutter, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. PERLMUTTER. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. 

My experience with all of this comes mostly from watching TV, 

‘‘Madam Secretary’’ and the different episodes they have had on 

stolen art and the destruction of antiquities and that kind of stuff. 

So I apologize for not really understanding this. 

Dr. Daniels, there are a couple of sentences in your testimony 

today that I would just like to inquire about a little bit more so 

that we actually understand, to the best of our ability, how this 

works, how eventually, from these antiquities, from the art works, 

from the artifacts, somebody gets money to do bad things around 

the world. So first, the theft is bad, and then they underwrite activities that are detrimental to America. 

So you talked about your workshop that you conducted back in 

2014 before Daesh advanced into Syria. And you say we learn more 

about the cultural risks of the professionals who are trying to study 

these antiquities. I would like to know a little more about that. 

Then you talk about Daesh, what they did was they had a tax, in 

effect, across the territory where they allowed looters to come in to 

a particular area, take stuff, and then there was a 20 percent tax. 

I would like to know a little more about that. 

And then during your testimony and in your report, you say that, 

‘‘nevertheless, such hype should not distract us,’’ and I want to 

know what you meant by that. So if you would, sir. 

Mr. DANIELS. Thank you very much. Let me take the first question about the workshop that we held in 2014 in southern Turkey. 

That particular workshop gathered together a group of Syrian cultural heritage professionals in areas outside of the control of the 

Assad regime who were caught in the conflict and caught in the 

crossfire and deeply concerned with preserving cultural property 

under their jurisdiction in those areas. It was primarily focused on 

archaeological sites in northwestern Syria and in museums and 

mosaics in what we call the Dead City area. 

And what we learned from them was they were deeply concerned 

about extremism. They were deeply concerned about entities such 

as Daesh, but they were also very concerned about barrel bombs 

by the Assad regime, and this was their primary concern about 

how they could protect collections from aerial bombardment. And 

this is in large measure what our discussions actually focused on 

in that context. 

As far as the tax that we learned about that was being conducted, the 20 percent tax, it was variable according to area and 

the type of artifact that was actually discovered. That was something that appeared to be a new innovation in terms of organized 

11 

and systematized looting. I understand that the committee has 

been briefed by the FBI on developments subsequent to 2014, in 

particular regard to the Abu Sayyaf raid. And what this really represented was an organized way for a criminal and terrorist organization to benefit from the antiquities trade in ways that— 

Mr. PERLMUTTER. So let me just stop you, because I am trying 

to figure that out. So did somebody from Daesh hire an art appraiser to say, okay, this is what this stuff is worth, and then did 

the Daesh militants, whomever they were, the ISIS folks, say to 

the looters, okay, we have appraised this, and you are going to pay 

us 20 percent, you can take it? 

Mr. DANIELS. Generally speaking, they impressed archaeologists 

and other cultural heritage professionals into their service. 

Mr. PERLMUTTER. Okay. To appraise it? 

Mr. DANIELS. To appraise. 

Mr. PERLMUTTER. All right. 

Mr. DANIELS. And so when I mention the ‘‘hype’’ in my remarks, 

one of the concerns that we have in the archaeological community 

is speculation about how much an entity like Daesh or any other 

terrorist organization actually earns from the illicit antiquities 

trade. I have been in fora both in the United States and internationally where numbers such as $600 million or $2 billion have 

been floated. That strains my imagination. 

Mr. PERLMUTTER. Okay. 

Mr. DANIELS. And I think that it is incumbent upon us as archaeologists who research this to be circumspect in the kinds of 

claims that we make, because it is such a strong claim to talk 

about the looting of antiquities and the market. And so we need to 

be realistic about the kinds of monetary figures that we share with 

Members of Congress and other policymakers such as yourselves. 

Mr. PERLMUTTER. All right. Thank you. 

And I yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman PEARCE. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

The gentleman from Colorado—or from North Carolina, Mr. 

Pittenger, is recognized. 

Mr. PITTENGER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I do like Colorado. 

I thank each of you for being with us today and for your expertise that you offer our committee. 

I would like to know what Congress can do and what more can 

be done to strengthen our sanctions laws or any policy tools that 

we could pursue to ensure that we can put an end to Daesh and 

its antiquities trade. Who would like to comment on that? Don’t 

fight over it now. 

Ms. GRUNDER. Thank you, Congressman Pittenger. We welcome 

the engagement of Congress in this really important issue, and I 

just wanted to add to the comments of Dr. Daniels. The exploitation of cultural property by terrorist groups like ISIS is dualedged, and we just can’t underestimate the terror value of blowing 

up and destroying these sites. 

Mr. PITTENGER. I appreciate that. What I need to find out, 

though, is whether there is anything more we can be doing in Congress to facilitate our capabilities? 

Ms. GRUNDER. As you know, we set up the Cultural Heritage Coordinating Committee in response to the sense of Congress from 

12 

last summer’s legislation, and we are going forward with that very 

senior coordinating body to strengthen our enforcement as much as 

possible. 

Mr. DANIELS. Sir, to your question, to date, we have treated the 

antiquities trade primarily as a problem of trade and import restrictions to reduce the incentives to loot and also access to U.S. 

markets for those looted materials. That is an important first step. 

But to date, there has not been any really creative thinking 

about how we would address the issue of antiquities looting around 

financial crimes. And there hasn’t been the kind of conversation 

about what laws or policies would actually look like at that nexus. 

Mr. PITTENGER. I would like to delve into technology. What technology is being used right now to address this illicit trafficking 

that—you are aware of the image recognition. Are varnish solutions applied to certain objects? Are we sophisticated enough in our 

technology or are we adequate or do we have capabilities there? 

Mr. DANIELS. Image recognition software to date is primarily 

based on facial recognition and shadows as a technology, and, unfortunately, those kinds of technologies don’t actually translate well 

to flat surfaces like pottery. And so we are not quite at that level 

of technical sophistication to really kind of make an app for that 

as it were. 

Mr. PITTENGER. How about trade-based money laundering, does 

this enter in—do they use trade-based money laundering as a 

means to transfer these objects? 

Mr. VILLANUEVA. Sir, from the trade-based money laundering 

perspective, it will take money from an illicit source to buy a commodity and then ship that commodity across international boundaries. So, yes, it is very possible that it is something that could 

happen. 

Mr. PITTENGER. The subterfuge of shipping out something from 

one country to another— 

Mr. VILLANUEVA. Absolutely. And you are changing the shape of 

the money, the cash, into a commodity, shipping the commodity, 

selling that commodity, and, therefore, laundering illicit funds, so 

it is a possibility. We have the trade transparency unit, which is 

one of my old jobs that dedicates their time and effort 100 percent 

to pursue trade-based money laundering by working with the customs administrations of the world in exchanging trade data to do 

that type of work. So it’s something that we, in law enforcement, 

are looking at, and it is very possible, sir. 

Mr. PITTENGER. Do we need to strengthen our capabilities in 

terms of TBML? And other countries, are they collaborating with 

us? Do you see a commitment, in terms of our partners, in being 

able to have the technology and the commitment to oversee TBML? 

Mr. VILLANUEVA. Yes, sir, we do. We work very well with the 

international community. A little bit of a difference that sometimes 

we encounter is that some customs administration, they are not 

law enforcement, where in the United States we carry a law enforcement mission, but then we work with the national police force 

and the customs administration, so there is a good partnership. 

There is many countries that are willing to work with us under the 

customs mutual assistance agreements that are in place throughout the world. 

13 

Mr. PITTENGER. Okay. My time is about up. Thank you so much. 

I yield back. 

Chairman PEARCE. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Illinois, Mr. Foster. 

Mr. FOSTER. Thank you. Thank you to everyone here. It is a very 

tragic subject. 

I was wondering, what is the rough fraction of, say, Daesh’s secondary market in terms of regions of the world: Western Europe; 

Asia; the Gulf states and other Arab states; and North America, 

just in rough terms? And are there trends in that? How effective 

have we been, for example, in Western Europe and North America 

to at least restrict purchases to well-documented, things that have 

been documented to be in museums and then disappear, and as 

well as items that were lifted out of the ground without documentation at all in the last couple of years? 

Mr. DANIELS. Sir, I think that the short answer to that question 

is that, generally speaking, in a conflict-looting environment, our 

research to date suggests that it takes 6 to 9 years for the antiquities themselves to surface publicly at the sort of end stage of the 

distribution node. 

What we do know about the antiquities that we have seen looted 

from Syria, more broadly, that are not at the moment possible to 

link to Daesh itself, is that they are generally being transshipped 

through Southeast Asia and through countries such as Singapore, 

Indonesia, and Thailand, and then back to markets in Western Europe. 

Western Europe predated the United States in placing import restrictions on looted material from Syria. The European Union was 

very quick on this particular issue, and Germany very much so has 

been very focused on clamping down this kind of trade. 

So we are not, at the moment, able to actually parse out in strict 

percentages where, say, Daesh’s material is specifically going to different market countries and market destinations. What we can say 

is that we suspect that this material is in the pipeline, again, from 

transshipment records that we have seen from Southeast Asia. 

We can also suspect that, as Ms. Grunder mentioned, the United 

States is the largest art market nation. Other significant art market nations include China, Russia, the Gulf states, Saudi Arabia, 

Qatar, and the Emirates. And so our suspicion is that we may see 

some kind of restructuring as these materials begin to surface, and 

they may not necessarily appear in, say, Western Europe as we 

might have typically expected, say, after the Iraq war. 

Mr. FOSTER. Certainly in the traditional modern and more modern art markets, China is a huge player and Asia generally. It 

would not be surprising to find them equally large. 

So we have no way of even guessing the percentage of stuff that 

is transshipped to Southeast Asia and then doesn’t even head for 

North America? 

Mr. DANIELS. Sir, at the moment we have not actually been able 

to review the transshipment records from a research perspective, 

and I really don’t know the extent to which there may be ongoing 

law enforcement investigations in the United States on that subject. 

14 

Mr. FOSTER. How important is the documentation of an artifact 

to its value on the secondary market? 

Mr. DANIELS. The preliminary research that we have done suggests that documentation of an artifact will increase the value of 

the objects somewhere on the order of 40 percent. So you can count 

that as a discount, if the object is completely unprovenanced without documentation. 

Mr. FOSTER. Is the technology to make fake artifacts sufficiently 

advanced such that it is watering down the value of nondocumented artifacts or not yet? 

Mr. DANIELS. One of the interesting things about the Syrian crisis is that there has been a flourishing of a fake antiquities market 

inside Syria that in many ways showed up first in the United 

States and in Western Europe, and these are very clearly fake. But 

there is enough expertise that exists within the international art 

market to actually determine the difference between a fake and a 

real object that I am not sure it has had any kind of effect on depressing prices. 

Mr. FOSTER. Okay. In a funny way, it is maybe encouraging that 

the real theft is being diluted by competent forgeries. 

A couple of years ago, Daesh started issuing gold coins with the 

intention of destroying the U.S. dollar. And I was wondering, have 

those—I presume they are pretty much worthless, except for their 

intrinsic value—started to acquire value on the secondary market 

as just a coin of another dead or dying country? 

Mr. DANIELS. I have not seen any evidence to date of extensive 

collection of the Daesh coins, although I have heard from law enforcement officials outside the United States that there is a collectors’ market for some objects in the Gulf states. 

Mr. FOSTER. I guess my time is up, so thank you. 

Chairman PEARCE. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Arkansas, Mr. 

Hill. 

Mr. HILL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank the ranking member for bringing this important subject back. And certainly I want 

to thank Dr. Daniels for the Smithsonian’s work around the United 

States in museum education and repatriation of cultural artifacts 

in coordination with our Native Americans around the country. It 

has been a great 20 years of the work that the Smithsonian has 

done on that. 

When I think about this subject, to me, from my reading, destruction, simple, malicious terrorist destruction seems really an 

equal or greater motivation than making money as a channel for 

the Islamic State. 

One of my favorite books last year was reading the Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu, which I commend to my colleagues is a terrific book in Mali of just simply the Sub-Saharan terrorist organizations connected with al-Qaida and the Islamic State and others, 

just their relentless effort to destroy thousands of years of Islamic 

manuscripts just because they could. 

So I hope that you will recommend to the Treasury Department 

that when Secretary Mnuchin goes to the Gulf this year to discuss 

this Gulf states-headquartered terror finance unit, that this issue 

of antiquities transfer be put on his agenda in the Gulf states, beVerDate Nov 24 2008 14:40 Apr 13, 2018 Jkt 028220 PO 00000 Frm 00020 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 K:\DOCS\28220.TXT TERI
15 

cause I have no doubt that if you wanted a relic from the Levant, 

it seems like that would have high value among Gulf State actors 

with funding. 

Following up on Mr. Foster’s comments about the buy side, on 

the sell side, where is, in your view, the major leakage of cultural 

artifacts? Are they primarily exiting through Turkey to these other 

markets you described or to the coast somewhere on the Mediterranean? Talk to me about where you think we should be most vigilant at looking for the leakage. 

Mr. DANIELS. Thank you for the question, sir. The Turkish law 

enforcement has actually very much stepped up to the current crisis about archaeological site looting, and the numbers of artifacts 

that the Turkish police forces have actually recovered is quite extraordinary and points to the effectiveness of their law enforcement 

response. 

My own view on this is that much of the large antiquities, not 

the small antiquities, but the large antiquities, were actually smuggled from Syria into Iraq to Mosul itself. And some of the members 

may be aware that not all plane flights stopped to Mosul during 

the present Iraq crisis, and my suspicion is that—or my working 

theory is that many of those artifacts were smuggled in those plane 

flights, particularly the large plane flights, and then to the Southeast Asian route that we have actually seen crop up. 

Some smaller artifacts, especially earlier in the conflict, were 

likely smuggled out through the regional networks that have long 

been established and routed through Lebanon, which has been a 

major transshipment point and sales point for antiquities in the 

Middle East for the better part of the last 75 or 100 years. 

Mr. HILL. Thank you. That is responsive. I think it guides the 

committee and also the Department of State, I would think, on 

where to place emphasis in trying to step up working with our customs people and our experts on how to target the stopping of those 

that do get transshipped. 

On a separate subject, we center all of our money laundering 

work on the banking system, because we always believe that people 

will try to turn whatever they have in the global market to cash, 

and, therefore, the nicest place to track that is in a financial institution. Of course, we know that now in today’s society, that is not 

necessarily accurate. 

So do you think that the international art community should be 

required, perhaps, to file a suspicious activity report through to 

some place or among each other on a self-regulatory or cooperative 

basis? I would be interested in your views on that, how you think 

those red flags could be used in maybe a more effective way. 

Whomever would like to respond to that. 

Mr. VILLANUEVA. That is an interesting question, actually. On 

the money side of the house, art dealers, as part of a business 

transaction, if they receive more than $10,000 in cash, they will 

have to do the Form 8300. As far as suspicious activity reports, 

that will entail a change in legislation because they are not a 

money service business. They are an arts dealer. I would defer to 

experts in terms of suspicious activity reports as it pertains to the 

art market. 

16 

But as far as the money side of the house, that would entail a 

little bit of a change, because they are not necessarily known as a 

money service business. However, there are mechanisms in place 

to contact law enforcement, and some of them have done that quite 

proactively, when they come across differing artifacts that are 

questionable to their expertise. They are the experts. So if we think 

of using your analogy, sir, if you think in terms of the art dealers 

as we think of the banks, which are the front line of defense for 

financial transaction, then art dealers are the first line of defense 

for us when it comes to the selling of looted artifacts, and we would 

love to work more with them. We are doing a lot of work with that 

community in terms of outreach, using their expertise, but I will 

defer to my colleagues at the table on the CPAA or the cultural 

properties out of the house. 

Chairman PEARCE. Thank you. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Nevada, Mr. 

Kihuen. 

Mr. KIHUEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and Mr. Ranking Member. And I thank you all this morning for being here with us, talking about such an important subject. 

I just have a couple of questions. In your opinion, how has ISIS’ 

approach to collecting payments from looters changed since the coalition air strikes in 2014 began to choke off other sources of revenue, including the sale of oil? And that is for any of you. 

Mr. DANIELS. I think two things on this. I think that the information that we actually—that we understand about how this market actually operates certainly became much more fragmented, in 

my view, since the coalition air strikes actually began. And so in 

some ways we are operating in an environment where it is not entirely clear. 

What I am aware of is that about the time the coalition air 

strikes began, it became harder to move material, and this is what 

my colleagues whom I have been working with in Syria tell me. 

And at that juncture there was also a problem of actually determining the price point of many of these antiquities, and many of 

the first buyer intermediaries began to misidentify in many ways 

the value of the antiquities, either grossly overvaluing or grossly 

undervaluing, pointing to a fact that maybe some of the expertise 

that they were relying on may have escaped or there wasn’t as 

much coordination because of the disruption caused by the coalition 

air strikes. 

Mr. KIHUEN. Got it. 

And, Mr. Villanueva, your testimony notes that your agency has 

a robust international presence through a network of attaches at 

67 different embassies and consulates. Of these attaches, how 

many of them have expertise dealing with art and antiquities? 

And, in your view, is additional training for such personnel warranted? 

Mr. VILLANUEVA. Thank you for the question, sir. So, yes, we do 

actually—as a part of our training, as Ms. Grunder mentioned, we 

actually train some of our agents stationed abroad. There are some 

offices that are heavily engaged. I mentioned the Italian 

17 

Carabinieri. Our office in Rome within the embassy under the chief 

of mission works very closely with our foreign partners on that. 

But let me say this: We do have subject matter experts in our 

office in D.C. We work very close with the Smithsonian, and with 

the Department of State. So if any of our agents, any of our 6,000 

agents, whether domestically or abroad, comes across to a case, an 

allegation involving CPAA, even if they are not trained, they do 

have resources available immediately, people that we can deploy, 

people who can talk to them on the phone to help guide that investigation. 

Mr. KIHUEN. Got it. Thank you. 

And then just my last question, and you might have answered 

this before I got here, but what portion of the funds are raised from 

direct looting by ISIS itself versus through imposing taxes and licenses on the civilian population? 

Mr. DANIELS. Sir, I think that one of the issues with the amount 

of money identified from ISIS is that we are really not clear right 

now about parsing out the exact dollar figure from ISIS. The best 

information I think that exists to date on that is the financial information that was retrieved from the Abu Sayyaf raid, and again, my 

understanding is that the committee was briefed on that particular 

raid in closed session. 

Mr. KIHUEN. Okay. Thank you. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. 

Chairman PEARCE. The Chair now recognizes the gentleman 

from somewhere east of the Mississippi River, Mr. Poliquin. 

Mr. POLIQUIN. Mr. Chairman, that would be the great State of 

Maine, Vacationland. If you haven’t booked your summer vacation 

to Maine, you should do so now. 

Thank you, gentlemen, and Ms. Grunder, for being here today. 

We really appreciate this. This is a concern to all Americans who 

want to make sure we preserve world history and culture, including here in the United States. 

We spend a lot of time talking about this illicit trade over in the 

Middle East and other parts of this great Earth, but what about 

right here in America? We have a real problem in our great State 

of Maine with an opioid and heroin addiction—an epidemic, I 

should say. It is a real concern. It is affecting all of our families 

or most of our families. 

And there has been a little bit of discussion today about illicit 

trade in antiquities here, right here, in historical artifacts right 

here in America. I would like to ask you, each of you, if you can 

weigh in as quickly as you can so I can get to some other questions, 

Ms. Grunder, we will start with you, do you have any feel for how 

much of this illicit trade in antiquities and historical artifacts has 

an impact on illicit drug trade here in America? 

Ms. GRUNDER. Thank you for the question. We believe that there 

are commonalities between all the different forms of illicit trade, 

but I would have to leave it to the experts for— 

Mr. POLIQUIN. Thank you. 

Dr. Daniels? 

Mr. DANIELS. Right now, we really do not have a very good sense 

about the relationship between Native American looting and the illicit drug trade, except insofar as many of the Native American culVerDate Nov 24 2008 14:40 Apr 13, 2018 Jkt 028220 PO 00000 Frm 00023 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 K:\DOCS\28220.TXT TERI
18 

tural property cases that have emerged have drug ties to either 

methamphetamines or to opioids. 

Mr. POLIQUIN. Okay. But it is happening? 

Mr. DANIELS. It is definitely happening. My own view on this and 

my working theory on this is that the looting of the archaeological 

sites actually provides a form of base capital for drug producers to 

begin their operations. 

Mr. POLIQUIN. I see. 

Mr. Villanueva, we have to choke off the financing to anybody 

who is trying to sell this poison to our kids and our families, 

whether it be in Maine, New Hampshire, or any other part of the 

country. Do you have any information here for the panel on this? 

Mr. VILLANUEVA. You mentioned financial as it pertains to drug 

trafficking. Our agency brings many years, over 40 years of financial investigation expertise. As a matter of fact, I have worked my 

career of over 25 years as a money laundering investigator. 

Mr. POLIQUIN. Thank you for doing that, but do we have a connection between the illegal drug trade and heroin and opioid in 

America with respect to the selling of our historical artifacts here 

within our borders? 

Mr. VILLANUEVA. What I can say in this forum at this point is 

that we have not seen any investigations on CPAA specifically cautioning on opioids, but I have to limit my comments at this point 

just to that. 

Mr. POLIQUIN. Okay. Thanks. 

Let’s dig in to another issue here. Dr. Daniels, I will start with 

you. Tell us a little bit about how a free port works and how a free 

port might have an impact on the illicit trade of historical artifacts 

in fueling the drug trade across the world. 

Mr. DANIELS. Generally speaking, sir, with a free port—we expect the antiquities trade to actually follow the free ports. Free 

ports have served as gallery spaces for distributors to actually 

show— 

Mr. POLIQUIN. There are warehouses at different ports of entry 

around the world. Is that correct? 

Mr. DANIELS. That is correct, sir. 

Mr. POLIQUIN. Okay. 

Mr. DANIELS. And so these warehouses serve as both showrooms. 

They serve as conservation centers. They serve as areas for the 

long-term holding of antiquities while they increase in value or the 

taint that is associated with their looting disappears over the passage of time. 

Mr. POLIQUIN. Okay. 

And, Mr. Villanueva, do you have any comment on that issue in 

particular? 

Mr. VILLANUEVA. Sir, I agree with Dr. Daniels. What I want to 

highlight is that free trade zones in the United States are a little 

bit different than those abroad. Free trade zones in the United 

States are heavily regulated. Customs and Border Protection does 

great work in that space, and any merchandise in the United 

States going in and out of a free trade zone is subject to shipping 

documents, such as country of origin, description, and valuation, 

very similar to the shipping information when they are actually 

19 

bringing merchandise into our commerce or out of the United 

States— 

Mr. POLIQUIN. Since this has an impact on terrorism financing 

around the world, does the United States Government have any 

kind of jurisdiction in those free zones in other countries in other 

parts of the world? 

Mr. VILLANUEVA. Only if it pertains to merchandise coming into 

our commerce once it comes into the United States. 

Mr. POLIQUIN. I see. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, very much. I yield back my time. And 

thank you all for being here today. 

Mr. PITTENGER [presiding]. The Chair recognizes the gentlelady 

from New York, Mrs. Maloney. 

Mrs. MALONEY. I thank all of the panelists for being here, and 

I thank the chairman and the ranking member for holding this important hearing on the theft of cultural antiquities. It has long 

been an interest of mine, and this is hardly a new practice. 

In the early 1800s, when Greece was under Ottoman rule, a British nobleman took over 100 pieces of the historic Parthenon in Athens, and under very questionable circumstances, he then sold these 

artifacts known as the Parthenon Marbles or sculptures to the 

British museum, where they remain today. This is probably the 

most important antiquities in Greece prepared, developed by Greek 

artists, owned by the Greeks, and yet a representative of an occupying nation sold them. He certainly didn’t have the right to sell 

them, so in effect, in my opinion, they were stolen. 

And I have introduced a resolution that calls for the two countries to negotiate a return of the Parthenon Marbles, because these 

artifacts have incredible cultural significance to the Greek people. 

But the story of the Parthenon Marbles in many ways mirrors the 

modern problems that we face in the illegal antiquities market. 

The British nobleman Thomas Bruce took these artifacts while the 

Ottomans were ruling Greece and then was able to profit when he 

sold them to a museum. 

Like today, there are terrorist organizations like ISIS who steal 

cultural artifacts in territories that they occupy and then convert 

them to cash by selling them on the black market in order to fund 

their terrorist organizations. Of course, if there were not a secondary market for stolen antiquities, then terrorists and criminals 

would not see these artifacts as potential sources of revenue in the 

first place. 

So I have two questions to ask the panel, and I would like to 

start with Mr. Villanueva. 

First, is it the lack of agreed-upon and enforceable standards in 

the antiquities market that makes it so attractive to criminals and 

terrorists to sell these artifacts or are the terrorists just using the 

antiquities market simply because the area they currently occupy 

happen to have lots of valuable antiquities? 

And we have been called to a vote. 

Mr. VILLANUEVA. I would say that when we are talking about 

cultural property, arts and antiquities trafficking, we are talking 

about, perhaps, the oldest crime in the books of law. Ever since we 

have had civilization, and we have had art, we have had the smuggling and looting of arts and antiquities. 

20 

But what I would say is that you talk about the area I occupy. 

I would also mention that there are regions with civil unrest, with 

rich history, traditions, arts and antiquities. So we do have, as far 

as the United States—I feel comfortable enforcing the laws we 

have, issues working with the international community to prevent 

the looting specifically as it pertains— 

Mrs. MALONEY. Do we have standards to prevent this in the antiquities market? Are people who buy these, do they have standards and laws against doing this? What are the standards that 

could prevent this from happening? Dr. Daniels? 

Mr. DANIELS. One of the issues in the broader antiquities market 

is that it has existed for a very long time, as you rightly point out. 

And for much of that time, there has been very little oversight or 

regulation or due diligence required in the passage of antiquities 

throughout the supply chain and then, ultimately, on to collectors. 

This has actually changed in recent years with the vigilance of 

the FBI Art Crime Team, and the State Department working well 

with them to enforce the memorandum of understanding that we 

have for the specific 16 countries and the other two special cases. 

Our principal issue, though, is that that does not represent international coverage, and there is a real lack of standards about what 

constitutes the documentation required for legal title for the sale 

of an object through that supply chain and the expectation to receive that kind of title information. 

Mrs. MALONEY. So how would you create the international standards? Through the Hague? How would it be created? What entity? 

The United Nations? How would you make this happen internationally? 

Mr. DANIELS. Right now, the approach has been very much piecemeal country by country, according to the laws of possessor title in 

each country. 

Mrs. MALONEY. Do you think it would be good to go to the United 

Nations with this effort? 

Mr. DANIELS. I am not sure there would be concurrence in the 

United Nations for such an actual project, and in that way I am 

a realist, politically, about what is possible in that way. But I think 

that there are certainly possibilities that this committee and the 

United States Congress can explore in regard to legitimate title. 

Mrs. MALONEY. Thank you. 

Mr. PITTENGER. The gentlelady’s time has expired. 

The Chair recognizes Mr. Royce, chairman of the House Foreign 

Affairs Committee. 

Mr. ROYCE. I thank the chairman. 

The Foreign Affairs Committee’s ranking member, Eliot Engel, 

and I last year passed the Protect and Preserve Cultural Property 

Act, and the goal there was to deny funding to ISIS, but also to 

improve our ability, our government’s ability to work with our partners there in Syria and in Iraq. And since that time—and I was 

at the Iraq museum last year—we have seen the destruction of the 

Great Mosque in Mosul. 

And I was going to ask in that vein, I would ask the panel what 

the practical impact of this legislation has been both as it relates 

to stopping the illicit trade in antiquities and in the coordination 

among the respective agencies that have a stake in this fight, and 

21 

also, are there other countries experiencing conflict in which illicit 

antiquities might enter the U.S. markets just as these antiquities 

taken down by ISIS has been found to have entered the U.S. market? 

Ms. GRUNDER. Thank you, Congressman Royce. The State Department has stood up the Cultural Heritage Coordinating Committee in response to the sense of Congress in the legislation from 

last summer, and we have had three meetings of that senior interagency committee since last summer. 

I think it genuinely has increased coordination among our agencies at a senior level. One result that I would highlight is a recent 

agreement between the Smithsonian and the State Department to 

fund a project in northern Iraq to do emergency stabilization at the 

site, the ancient site of Nimrud. 

Mr. DANIELS. Sir, thank you for drawing attention to the Protect 

and Preserve International Cultural Property Act and your bipartisan leadership with Mr. Engel on this particular issue. 

I also want to emphasize just the importance of the increased coordination capacity that has increased across the interagency after 

the CHCC was stood up. 

What I also want to add in this regard is that the Protect and 

Preserve International Cultural Property Act was specific to Syria 

and looted material from Syria in order to choke off the Daesh 

funding. There are, of course, other countries experiencing conflict. 

Afghanistan, Nigeria, and South Sedan all have looting issues, and 

all have antiquities that have the potential to enter the flow of 

commerce. 

I recently returned after a prolonged trip to Europe speaking 

with law enforcement. And after my conversations in those meetings, I am at this point almost more concerned about the nexus between looting and al-Qaida and Afghanistan than I am about 

Daesh and Syria and Iraq. But there is no protection. There are no 

import restrictions for Afghanistan. 

Mr. ROYCE. Thank you. 

Any other commentary? 

Mr. VILLANUEVA. Sir, as far as the different topics, I will defer 

to my colleagues. No further comments from law enforcement. 

Mr. ROYCE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate it, and I 

yield back. 

Mr. PITTENGER. The gentleman yields back. 

The Chair recognizes Mr. Gottheimer for 1 minute. 

Mr. GOTTHEIMER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you, Mr. 

Ranking Member, and all of the witnesses for appearing today. 

Mr. Villanueva, late last month, The Wall Street Journal quoted 

a former customs officer in New York, who handled more than 16 

antiquities seizures saying, ‘‘It is still surprisingly easy to smuggle 

stolen objects here,’’ pointing to the use of courier services, air 

cargo, and even stashing objects in passenger luggage. 

What additional steps is DHS, ICE, or TSA taking to disrupt and 

prevent this pathway into the lucrative U.S. market? Thank you. 

Mr. VILLANUEVA. Thank you for the question, sir. As we mentioned: training. Training capacity building is paramount to what 

we do, understanding this crime and the smuggling, the routes, the 

techniques, concealment, what have you, is important to both inVerDate Nov 24 2008 14:40 Apr 13, 2018 Jkt 028220 PO 00000 Frm 00027 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 K:\DOCS\28220.TXT TERI
22 

vestigators and to Customs and Border Protection working at the 

front lines. 

So we bring the CBP officers to training. We talk about the different concealment techniques. We talk about the investigative side 

of the houses. We talk about the handling and the preservation of 

the pieces. We also work with the interagency and with our international partners to learn about the pieces that are out there in 

the market, whether the great market or the legitimate auction 

houses that might be coming through the border, so that when our 

officers come across with that piece, a red flag goes up. 

So there are actually actions in place. There are efforts underway 

through Customs and Border Protection, Immigration and Customs 

Enforcement using our border search authority to prevent that. 

Mr. GOTTHEIMER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. 

Mr. PITTENGER. Thank you. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

We regretfully must adjourn this hearing. Thank you so much for 

being with us today and for your wise counsel. 

The Chair notes that some Members may have additional questions for this panel, which they may wish to submit in writing. 

Without objection, the hearing record will remain open for 5 legislative days for Members to submit written questions to these witnesses and to place their responses in the record. Also, without objection, Members will have 5 legislative days to submit extraneous 

materials to the Chair for inclusion in the record. 

[Whereupon, at 10:25 a.m., the hearing was adjourned.] 

(23) 

A P P E N D I X 

June 23, 2017 

24 


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STATEMENT 

OF 

BRIAN I. DANIELS, PH.D. 

RESEARCH ASSOCIATE 

SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION 

DIRECTOR OF RESEARCH AND PROGRAMS 

PENN CULTURAL HERITAGE CENTER 

UNNERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA MUSEUM 

REGARDING A HEARING ENTITLED 

"THE EXPLOITATION OF CULTURAL PROPERTY: EXAMINING ILLEGAL ACTNTTY IN 

THE ANTIQUITIES AND ART TRADE" 

BEFORE THE 

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

COMMITTEE ON FINANCIAL SERVICES 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON TERRORISM AND ILLICIT FINANCE 

June 23, 2017 

9:15a.m. 

2128 Rayburn House Office Building 
25 


28220.002

Chairman Pearce, Ranking Member Perlmutter, and distinguished Members: 

Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today to discuss criminal and terrorist groups' 

use of the illicit antiquities trade. 

Archaeological site looting occurs in situations where conflict or political instability is present, there 

is a lack of commitment to international norms of heritage protection, or economic incentives for an 

individual or group outweigh other !ega! or cultural considerations. 

I study this subject as a Research Associate at the Smithsonian Institution. Smithsonian Research 

Associates are senior experts in their fields who maintain a formal scholarly affiliation with the 

Smithsonian as well as to their home academic institution, which, in my case, is the University of 

Pennsylvania Museum. Research Associates bring their own outside expertise and knowledge to the 

Smithsonian and contribute to its mission for the increase and diffusion of knowledge. I have been 

appointed as a Smithsonian Research Associate since 2008, and have pursued scholarly work about 

cultural property protection, the antiquities trade, the intentional destruction of cultural and religious 

sites during conflict, and the collection of archaeological artifacts by museums. At the University of 

Pennsylvania Museum, I am the Director of Research and Programs for the Penn Cultural Heritage 

Center. 

As an archaeologist and an historian, I am sensitive to how archaeological site looting results in the 

loss of information about where an object was found-the information that enables us to understand 

the past. Concerns about looting have led professional associations such as the American Alliance of 

Museums and the International Council of Museums to adopt ethical codes of conduct that 

recommend against the acquisition oflooted materials in museum collections. Most museums do not 

want to incentivize the looting of archaeological materials or risk the reputational harm that comes 

with acquiring antiquities from the illicit antiquities trade. A few major U.S. institutions, such as the 

Smithsonian and the University of Pennsylvania Museum, adopted strong internal policies against the 

acquisition of such material in the early 1970s. 

However, there is now growing concern and compelling evidence that archaeological site looting is 

implicated in the financing of organized criminal activity and other terrorist networks. It is my view 

that these developments may represent a recent innovation and a restructuring of the overall 

antiquities and art trade. 

For much of the past fifty years, the illicit antiquities trade has involved regional networks of looters, 

intermediaries who purchase from looters, distributors who purchase from other intermediaries, and 

collectors. Some intermediaries and distributors are also connoisseurs with formal training in art 

history or archaeology. These networks have served as stable, hierarchical, and functional multidecade supply chains. Existing laws in the United States, such as the Convention on Cultural 

Property Act of 1983, and current law enforcement responses are oriented toward identifYing, 

forfeiting, and repatriating artifacts that are traded through these illicit networks. 

Because of the longevity of these networks and the effect of their damage to ancient sites, many 

archaeologists have become familiar with the distributors and the collectors at the end stages of these 

supply chains. In some cases, they may be aware of the looters who pillage archaeological sites. For 

these reasons, the archaeological community has frequently been able to act as a resource to law 

enforcement investigators about the illicit antiquities trade by identifYing the looters, prominent 

distributors, and famous collectors and collecting museums. 

- 1 -
26 


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Many of these established networks are now unraveling. Efforts by the FBI Art Crime Team and the 

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations' (HSI) 

cultural property unit, as well as international law enforcement agencies such as the Italian 

Carabinieri Art Squad, have dismantled some of the most notorious networks. A major Greco-Roman 

antiquities smuggling network, coordinated by the connoisseur intermediaries and distributors Robert 

Hecht and Giacomo di Medici since the 1960s, has now been effectively terminated due to the work 

of the Carabinieri and the collaboration of U.S. law enforcement agencies. Operation Hidden Idol, 

led by HSI, is now breaking apart a looting network led by Subhash Kapoor in India that has targeted 

religious sculpture. Such law enforcement actions have been determinative in disrupting regional 

illicit antiquities networks. 

In recent years, an increasing number of reports have circulated linking organized criminal and 

terrorist activities to antiquities sales. Some of these accounts are more credible than others, but their 

frequency is sufficient to suggest that they warrant further investigation and that changes are 

occurring to the structure of the illicit antiquities trade. Commentators have implicated, among 

others, members of the Haqqani Network-which is allied with the Taliban and AI-Qaeda-in 

collecting protection money from traffickers moving looted artifacts from Afghanistan into Pakistan. 

There have also been suggestions of links between the insurgency following the Second Gulf War 

and the illicit antiquities trade in Iraq. Archaeological site looting began early in the Syrian Civil War 

and has been widespread both in regions under the control of the Assad regime and in areas held by 

various rebel groups. Based upon the prior experience of the Iraq insurgency, speculation has been 

widespread about the role of extremist groups in the illicit antiquities trade, such as the Islamic State 

ofJraq and the Levant (ISIL), or Daesh. 

Shortly before Daesh's territorial advance across Syria and Iraq in 2014, I travelled to southwestern 

Turkey with colleagues from the Smithsonian, University of Pennsylvania Museum, and Shawnee 

State University to train a group of Syrian activists and museum staff members on how to protect 

cultural heritage during times of war. During our workshop, we learned more about the risks cultural 

heritage professionals have been facing when trying to carry out their work as well as substantive 

information about archaeological site looting by Daesh. 

Upon returning, two Syrian colleagues and I published an opinion piece in the New York Times, 

which ran on September 2, 2014, where we outlined what we had learned about Daesh's looting 

activities. Based upon our conversations with our Syrian colleagues, we learned that Daesh permitted 

looting at archaeological sites in exchange for a percentage of the monetary value of any finds. The 

amount levied for this "tax" varied across the territory Daesh administered, but began at a base of 20 

percent and increased according to the type of object recovered. Looters operated with a "license" 

from Daesh, and a representative might be assigned to oversee their work to ensure the proper use of 

heavy machinery and to verify accurate payment of the tax. Some excavations were conducted by 

semiprofessional field crews who came to Syria from Iraq and had prior experience looting ancient 

sites there. 

Since 2014, media stories have attributed Daesh's income from the illicit antiquities trade to 

monetary figures that strain all reasonable belief. Nevertheless, such hype should not distract us from 

the fact that looted antiquities have been found in the possession of Daesh leaders and militants. The 

Abu Sayyaf raid by U.S. Special Forces inside Syria, which targeted a key financial manager, 

resulted in the recovery of antiquities, Islamic-period coins, and an antique religious manuscript. In 

recent weeks, other artifacts from the Mosul Museum have been recovered from the home ofDaesh 

militants. Additionally, in late 2016, the Italian government confirmed that Daesh had expanded its 

-2 
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organized looting activity into Libya as part of a collaborative enterprise with the Calabrian 

'Ndrangheta. 

In my opinion, concluding that definitive evidence exists to establish a relationship between an 

organized criminal network or terrorist group and the illicit antiquities trade requires a particularly 

high threshold of confidence in the underlying accuracy of the information. As researchers, we can 

only make these interpretations with careful investigation. Unlike the more traditional illicit 

antiquities trade, which archaeologists have known well, these recent developments require 

additional study and interdisciplinary collaboration with criminologists and political scientists who 

are more familiar with research about illicit criminal networks and terrorist groups. The Conflict 

Culture Research Network, a group of fifteen U.S. and international universities and museums, is 

now beginning to develop these collaborations. I coordinate this research network, and the National 

Science Foundation supported its planning. 

How might the stable, hierarchical, and functional multi-decade supply chains that have fed the illicit 

antiquities trade to date be changing? With the introduction of organized criminal and terrorist actors 

into the illicit trade, we might expect the supply chains to remain hierarchical but to become irregular 

and adaptable. The looters engaged in pillaging an ancient site are likely to remain the same because 

some ba~ic knowledge is required for recovering archaeological material. But, the intermediaries 

purchasing antiquities from looters are likely to be different. This stage of the supply chain is the 

most probable entry point for organized criminal and terrorist actors. These buyers are likely to be 

opportunistic and to treat antiquities as a resource similar to other illicitly trafficked conflict 

resources such as diamonds, oil, and coltan (an ore for electronics). We would expect criminal and 

terrorist actors to be involved with the illicit antiquities trade only in so far as it was profitable. We 

would also anticipate that their participation would vary according to the underlying market value of 

the antiquities, access to distributors, collector demand, and the perceived and actual success of 

international efforts to restrict the sale of illicitly trafficked antiquities on legal art markets. 

Finally, it is also important to note that the association between archaeological site looting and 

criminal groups is not only an international problem. In the United States, Native American 

archaeological sites have been targeted by looters, particularly in the Southwest, who are searching 

for pottery and other materials for sale to intermediaries and distributors in domestic and 

international art markets. At the border of Oregon and California, where I conduct an archaeological 

project, looters target Native American arrowheads and human remains. Arrowheads are sold to local 

intermediaries and distributors, while human remains, in particular, human skulls, enter a U.S. illicit 

market about which we know very little. What we do know is that these activities have been 

associated with other criminal enterprises, including the illegal sale and distribution of 

methamphetamines. Recent investigations by the U.S. Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, 

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Oregon State Police, and the Klamath Tribes have resulted in 

successful arrests and convictions. The extent to which there is a nexus between Native American 

archaeological site looting and large-scale, drug-related criminal networks is unknown. 

In summary, there is good reason to suspect that the illicit antiquities trade is going through a 

reconfiguration that involves the integration of organized criminal networks and terrorist groups. The 

extent of their involvement will only become clear as additional research is conducted. Researchers 

at the Smithsonian and other collaborating institutions in the archaeological community are looking 

to address this topic in order to ensure the protection of cultural heritage for future generations. I am 

happy to answer any questions from the Committee, as I am able. 

- 3-
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28220.005

UNCLASSIFIED 

Testimony from the Department of State, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs on 

The Exploitation of Cultural Property: Examining Illicit Activity in the Antiquities and Art Trade 

Before the 

United States House of Representatives 

Committee on Financial Services 

Subcommittee on Terrorism and Illicit Finance 

June 23, 20!7 

• Thank you to the Honorable Steve Pearce, chairman, the Honorable Ed Perlmutter, 

ranking member, and the members of the Subcommittee on Terrorism and Illicit Finance 

for inviting me here today to testify on the topic of criminal and terrorist groups' use of 

the antiquities and art trade to engage in illicit activity and finance their operations. 

• The Department of State has been involved for decades in efforts to prevent the pillage 

and trafficking of cultural property. We recently submitted a report to Congress, as 

required by the Protect and Preserve International Cultural Property Act, on executivebranch efforts to protect this kind of heritage around the world since the law was signed 

in May 2016. Today, I would like to emphasize several notable examples of the State 

Department's efforts, primarily in the Middle East, and offer our assessment of the scale 

and some features of the threats to cultural heritage posed by criminal and terrorist 

groups. 

• The !983 Convention on Cultural Property Implementation Act, or C-P-I-A for short, 

implements obligations of the United States under the 1970 UNESCO Convention on the 

UNCLASSIFIED 
29 


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UNCLASSIFIED 

Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership 

of Cultural Property. The CPIA provides a general legal framework by which the United 

States Government can combat pillage and trafficking of cultural property through 

bilateral agreements. One important feature of these agreements, entered into with partner 

countries pursuant to the CPIA and administered by the Bureau of Educational and 

Cultural Affairs' Cultural Heritage Center, is the imposition of import restrictions on 

certain categories of archaeological or ethnological material determined to be in jeopardy 

of pillage. 

• Import restrictions are intended to reduce the incentive for looting and trafficking of these 

kinds of objects by closing off the U.S. market for art, antiques, and antiquities, which is 

the world's largest such market with 43% of global market share according to 2016 

statistics by The European Fine Art Foundation. To date, pursuant to the CPIA, we have 

concluded bilateral agreements with 16 countries and implemented import restrictions on 

an emergency basis, pursuant to legislation enacted by Congress, for Iraq and Syria. 

• The State Department also coordinates interagency efforts to promote law enforcement 

and other activities designed to interdict trafficked cultural property. The highest level 

body we convene is the Cultural Heritage Coordinating Committee (CHCC), which was 

established last year consistent with the Sense of Congress in the Protect and Preserve 

International Cultural Property Act. The CHCC is chaired by the Assistant Secretary for 

Educational and Cultural Affairs and comprises senior representatives from the 

Departments of State, Homeland Security (DHS- Immigration and Customs 

UNCLASSIFIED 
30 


28220.007

UNCLASSIFIED 

Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP)), Interior (National Park 

Service (NPS)), Justice (DOJ, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)), and 

Defense (DOD), and the Smithsonian Institution. The CHCC has met three times, in 

November 2016, March 2017, and June 2017, and will next meet in September of this 

year. The CHCC established two working groups (on technology and on partnerships and 

public awareness) that have each met twice, in February and May 2017. A third group, 

the DOS-led Cultural Antiquities Task Force (CATF) which focuses on law enforcement 

collaboration and training, met most recently on June 7, 2017. The role ofCHCC is to 

help coordinate interagency efforts on cultural heritage protection and preservation, to 

share information about new developments and best practices and to provide policy 

guidance and direction to the working groups and CATF. 

• CATF was established by the Department in 2004 at the direction of Congress. Originally 

charged with responding to looting in Iraq and Afghanistan, its mandate has been 

expanded to combat antiquities trafficking and looting of archaeological sites around the 

world by identifYing and supporting effective law enforcement as well as diplomatic and 

other programmatic measures. 

• CA TF comprises representatives from the Departments of State, Homeland Security, 

Justice, Defense, and Interior, as well as the Internal Revenue Service. It works with DHS 

and the Smithsonian Institution to provide training on the application ofU.S.laws and 

international agreements and the identification oflooted and stolen antiquities for U.S. 

UNCLASSIFIED 
31 


28220.008

UNCLASSIFIED 

customs personnel. State, DHS, and the Smithsonian concluded the most recent training 

for approximately 25 CBP and ICE agents in April of this year. 

• CA TF supports international workshops to promote regional cooperation to protect 

heritage sites and prevent trafficking of cultural objects. It also provides support for 

international law enforcement efforts to combat theft, looting, and trafficking of 

historically and culturally significant objects originating in foreign countries. 

• CATF supports the production of"Red Lists of Cultural Objects at Risk," produced by 

the International Council of Museums. Red Lists are compact, illustrated guides designed 

to show categories of cultural objects most at risk of pillage and trafficking. One of the 

most recent CA TF -sponsored workshops was a two-day program in Athens, in 2016, that 

brought together officials and professional staff of the Greek Ministry of Culture, 

Hellenic National Police (HNP) Antiquities Division, HNP Organized Crime, Greek 

Customs, Ministry of Finance, Financial & Economic Crime Unit (SDOE), and the 

Hellenic Coast Guard with representatives of US law enforcement agencies to discuss 

and develop a plan for improving cooperation to prevent trafficking of looted and stolen 

cultural objects in the Mediterranean region. 

• Another CA TF -sponsored project is the Illicit Pathway Attack Strategy, or IP AS [eyepass], which is a series of studies by DHS on illicit and trafficked antiquities. For these 

studies, subject-matter experts at State, ICE, and CBP identified and prioritized the most 

significant illicit pathways of Cultural Property, Art and Antiquities (CP AA) trafficking. 

UNCLASSIFIED 
32 


28220.009

UNCLASSIFIED 

These law-enforcement sensitive products inform ICE and other U.S. government 

decision-makers of key trafficking source countries, transshipment cities, and destination 

cities. They have been used to both identify countries and cities of interest, and share best 

practices for the conduct of cultural property investigations with law enforcement 

partners. 

• Along these lines, recently the State Department's Bureau of Counterterrorism and 

Countering Violent Extremism issued a call for proposals for a project to improve 

understanding of the antiquities trafficking networks and destination markets, as well as 

to develop tools, mechanisms, and best practices to interdict and prevent the trafficking 

of cultural property that could finance terrorism. This project aims to identify the 

individuals, entities, and networks used to trade Iraqi and Syrian cultural property, as well 

as understand and prioritize capability and capacity gaps of key law enforcement 

agencies responsible for taking countering-terrorist-finance action in identified countries 

where the purveyors of the cultural property are located. This project is scheduled to 

begin in September 2017 and will last one year. 

• The State Department has laid the groundwork for these and other efforts by working to 

document the scale of the problem. For example, ECA's Cultural Heritage Center staff 

regularly examines satellite imagery documenting looting in the Middle East, in our 

partner bilateral countries, and elsewhere. This work allowed the Department in 2014 to 

bring to the world's attention the massive looting at the important ancient Syrian city of 

Dura Europos [DUR-a you-ROPE-us], a Classical-period site on the Euphrates River near 

UNCLASSIFIED 
33 


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UNCLASSIFIED 

the border with Iraq, where some of the world's oldest preserved churches and 

synagogues had been discovered. Although we do not know who looted the site, it is 

located in an area that at the time was under the control of extremist groups including 

Jabhat AI Nusra and ISIS. 

• To acquire this kind of information more systematically, the State Department's Near 

Eastern Affairs (NEA) Bureau funded the Safeguarding the Heritage of the Near East 

Initiative by the academic research organization the American Schools of Oriental 

Research, or ASOR, in 2015 and 2016. ASOR recorded thousands of heritage sites in 

Iraq and Syria at risk of looting or damage from conflict and monitored damage and 

looting to these places using open-source reporting, in-country sources, and satellite 

imagery analysis. Their work showed that hundreds of sites have been pillaged or 

damaged since 2011, potentially supplying large amounts of cultural property to illicit 

trade. The partnership with ASOR has recently been renewed through March 2018; its 

mandate for monitoring and reporting has been expanded to include Libya in addition to 

Iraq and Syria. 

• The State Department has also provided first-hand evidence of involvement in looting 

and trafficking by terrorist organizations, notably ISIS. At an event at the Metropolitan 

Museum of Art in 20!5 the State Department made public previously classified 

documents seized during a U.S. special operations action at the residence of ISIS leader 

Abu Sayyaf in Syria. According to receipts among these documents, more than $265,000 

in taxes was assessed, suggesting total sales transactions worth more than $1.25 million 

UNCLASSIFIED 
34 


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UNCLASSIFIED 

in a period just from December 2014 to March 2015. On the same day it shared these 

documents, the State Department announced a Rewards for Justice program offering up 

to $5 million for information leading to the significant disruption of the sale or trade of 

oil and antiquities by, for, on behalf of, or to benefit ISIS. That announcement made 

headlines around the world, and gave pause, we hope, to some of the shadowy 

middlemen who make the illegal trafficking possible. 

• The State Department also worked closely with the Department of Justice and the U.S. 

Attorney's Office in Washington, DC to file complaints seeking forfeiture of antiquities 

associated with ISIS in December 2016. The lawsuit marked the first time that the United 

States filed an action to forfeit antiquities that are foreign assets of ISIS. The action 

specifically seeks the forfeiture of a gold ring, two coins and a carved stone depicted in 

photographs found during the raid of a residence of Abu Sayyaf. These items date to 

ancient times and are believed to be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. 

• Along with other USG bodies, the State Department has also been active in various 

international venues on this matter. Acting Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and 

Public Affairs Bruce Wharton led the U.S. delegation to the recent G-7 culture 

ministerial, the first ever devoted to culture, at which cultural heritage preservation was 

one of the main topics of discussion. The U.S. supported the adoption of UN Security 

Council Resolutions 2199 and 2347, the latter of which particularly being important in 

this context as the first-ever UN Security Council Resolution devoted to cultural heritage 

protection in conflict situations. To take one other example, the State Department showed 

early leadership on this issue when it convened, together with UNESCO, a roundtable in 

UNCLASSIFIED 
35 


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UNCLASSIFIED 

Paris in 2015 on cultural heritage preservation at the occasion of the launch of the 

updated ICOM Red List for Iraq. 

• The State Department has highlighted the ties between trafficking in illicitly acquired 

antiquities and terror finance in the Counter-ISIS Finance Group. This Group, which 

includes nearly 40 countries that are part of Global Coalition to Counter ISIL, has 

focused on ensuring full implementation of the multiple U.N. Security Council 

resolutions that prohibit all forms of financial support directly or indirectly to ISIS, 

including funds raised from the illicit trade in stolen cultural heritage objects. 

• In all of these international efforts, the State Department has forged and maintained close 

relations with relevant international and intergovernmental bodies, such as ICOM, the 

Counter-ISIS Finance Group, the World Customs Organization, the UN Office on Drugs 

and Crime, other UN bodies such as the UN Security Council Resolution 1267 

Monitoring Team, whose excellent staff have taken a close interest in cultural property 

matters, and INTERPOL, just to name a few. 

• As I bring this section to a close I would like to stress that although the Middle East, and 

especially Syria and Iraq, receive the most attention, the problem of looting and 

trafficking of cultural property is by no means limited to these areas. There is clear 

evidence for serious concerns about looting and trafficking in many other areas of the 

world. Within the United States itself, there are concerns about illegal acquisition and 

trafficking in cultural objects, including items important for American Indian Tribes, and 

where there are indications that such items are being illicitly exported, the Department of 

UNCLASSIFIED 
36 


28220.013

UNCLASSIFIED 

State is working to respond, together with other Federal agencies such as the Departments 

of Justice, Interior and Homeland Security. 

• On the specific topic of criminal and terrorist groups' use of the antiquities and art trade 

to engage in illicit activity and finance their operations, here is the summary of the best 

information available to the Department of State on the current situation, again focusing 

on the situation in the Middle East: 

• We know that pillage and looting of cultural heritage sites is taking place on a massive 

scale. This is clearly demonstrated by several different lines of evidence, including the 

archival record provided by the Abu Sayyaf documents, documentation by our partner 

ASOR of widespread looting in Syria, and by the satellite imagery of places like Dura 

Europos - an ancient city whose history has been largely destroyed through looting. 

• The scale of the looting at places like Dura Europos and Apamea [a-puh-MA Y-uh] (both 

in Syria)- two cities whose urban area has been almost entirely covered by looters' pitsstrongly suggests that, at least in some places, this looting is not opportunistic but rather 

is systematic, presumably making use of pre-existing smuggling routes and middlemen 

and likely being carried out with probable markets in mind. 

• The Abu Sayyaf documents make it clear that terrorist organizations such as ISIS are 

involved in and benefitting from this illicit activity. These documents also make it clear 

UNCLASSIFIED 
37 


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UNCLASSIFIED 

that ISIS depends on other actors to assist with carrying out this activity. ISIS, and likely 

other such groups, do not act alone. 

• Preliminary analysis indicates that the focus of looting is at Classical-period sites- that 

is, sites that can supply Greek and Roman artifacts such as the Classical sites of Dura 

Europos and Apamea. However, looting at pre-Classical sites is also a major problem. 

The site ofMari [MAR-ee], also in Syria on the Euphrates River near the border with 

Iraq, provides a good example. This site dates to the 2"d millennium B.C. Because regular 

archaeological excavations had been carried out there since the 1930s, we know it would 

be a likely source for objects such as cuneiform tablets and statues. 

• We assess, based on the subject-matter expert and law enforcement sources available to 

us, that at least some material from this illicit trade is entering the United States, by far 

the world's largest market for art, antiques, and antiquities. 

• We are not able to provide any estimate as to the quantity of materials, the monetary 

value of such objects entering into the United States or in circulation elsewhere in the 

world, or the primary beneficiaries of this trade (for example, ISIS or some other terrorist 

or criminal organizations). 

• One or more members of the Intelligence Community might be better positioned to 

further investigate these particular questions, perhaps making use of recent State 

UNCLASSIFIED 
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UNCLASSIFIED 

Department-funded products like the Illicit Pathway Attack Strategy studies. We stand 

ready to offer any further assistance we can to the Intelligence Community on this topic. 

• Thank you again for your invitation to participate in this committee hearing. I look 

forward to your questions. 

UNCLASSIFIED 
39 


28220.016

U.S. Immigration 

and Customs 

Enforcement 

STATEMENT 

OF 

RAYMOND VILLANUEVA 

ASSISTANT DIRECTOR 

INTERNATIONAL OPERATIONS 

HOMELAND SECURITY INVESTIGATIONS 

REGARDING A HEARING ENTITLED 

"THE EXPLOITATION OF CULTURAL PROPERTY: EXAMINING ILLEGAL ACTIVITY 

IN THE ANTIQUITIES AND ART TRADE" 

BEFORE THE 

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

COMMITTEE ON FINANCIAL SERVICES 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON TERRORISM AND ILLICIT FINANCE 

Friday, June 23, 2017 

9:15a.m. 

2128 Rayburn House Office Building 
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Chairman Pearce, Ranking Member Perlmutter, and distinguished Members: 

Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today to discuss the efforts of U.S. 

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to protect cultural property, religious items, art, 

and antiquities, and to mitigate their illicit trafficking both into and outside of the United States. 

Cultural Property, Art and Antiquities Program 

As the largest investigative agency within the U.S. Department of Homeland Security 

(DHS), ICE investigates a wide range of domestic and international activities arising from the 

illegal-movement of people, goods, and money with a nexus to the borders of the United States. 

Federal customs laws regarding smuggling, trafficking, and border search authority provide ICE 

Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) with the authority and responsibility to take a lead role 

in investigating crimes involving the import, export, and distribution of stolen or looted cultural 

property; HSI also works with the Department of Justice to prosecute the individuals and 

organizations responsible for these crimes. 

To conduct its complex investigations, ICE may collaborate with tnbal, federal, state and 

local law enforcement; private institutions; intergovernmental organizations; and foreign 

governments. ICE works directly with cultural property practitioners to support these 

collaborative investigations. 

ICE established the Cultural Property, Art and Antiquities (CP AA) program with a threepart mission: to conduct training on the preservation, protection, and investigation of cultural 

heritage and property; to coordinate and support investigations involving the illicit trafficking of 

cultural property from countries around the world; and to facilitate the repatriation of illicit 

cultural items seized as a result ofHSI investigations to the objects' and artifacts' lawful and 

rightful owners. 

Education and Training 

With funding provided by the U.S. Department of State (DOS) and support from the 

Smithsonian Institution, ICE continues to train law enforcement officers on the handling, 

investigation, and seizure of items that are another nation's cultural property. 
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Since 2007, approximately400 ICE special agents, U.S. Customs and Border Protection 

(CBP) officers, prosecutors, and representatives offoreign law enforcement have been trained by 

subject-matter experts in the fields of cultural property law, targeting, intelligence, archeology, 

and museum conservation. Our goal is to train as many law enforcement officers as possible in 

order to broaden the base of expertise in cultural property investigations. Today, ICE is working 

more closely than ever with CBP to ensure the efforts of our agents and officers are integrated 

throughout the lifecycle of a case. 

In the last two years, the CP AA program has also participated in conferences and 

workshops in Canada, France, Greece, Italy, Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan, and Tunisia, and the 

program is working with several federal goverurnent and international agencies to develop 

additional training and capacity-building workshops for future delivery. 

In these workshops, we raise awareness of the threats facing cultural property, especially 

in conflict zones. Unfortunately, these threats are not new, and criminals have, for many years, 

taken advantage of civil uurest to loot and pillage artifacts and objects that make up a culture's 

history. 

Education extends beyond the classroom. In January 2017, CBP, a key partner in 

stopping the trafficking of art and antiquities, issued its first-ever Cultural Property Alert 

regarding the looting of an ancient Iraqi tablet, located in terrorist-held territory and at high-risk 

ofbeing trafficked by terrorist or criminal organizations. The alert was issued to CBP targeting 

offices, to provide awareness and enhance their capability to prevent the illicit importation of 

cultural objects from Iraq. Furthermore, CBP continues to create detailed alerts and 

informational documents to build awareness among its field personnel regarding the illicit import 

and export of cultural property. 

Education is not limited to law enforcement personnel directly involved in investigations 

and prosecutions. ICE continues to educate brokers and potential purchasers of cultural property 

on the importance of provenance (history of ownership) through its website, personal outreach, 

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and participation in cultural property symposia, and encourages individuals to report any 

encounters with individuals seeking to sell illicit artifacts to the HSI Tip Line. 

Investigations 

Investigations into cultural property trafficking can result from a variety ofleads, 

including: a routine border search or interdiction by CBP; foreign-country notification of an 

auction house or online sale; the CP AA program; ICE Attaches; or a line of inquiry during 

various investigations generated by ICE special agents. 

The CP AA program plays a supporting role in cultural property investigations by 

identifYing subject-matter experts to authenticate items that may have cultural and religious 

significance, by coordinating leads with other offices, and by acting as a liaison to INTERPOL 

and other law enforcement agencies. The program supports ICE's more than 6,000 special 

agents in more than 200 domestic offices throughout the United States. We also have a robust 

international presence through our network of Attaches at 67 U.S. embassies and consulates, 

where agents work closely with partners-such as Rome's Carabinieri Tutela del Patrimonio 

Culturale, the Italian force responsible for combatting art and antiquities crimes-and for 

apprehending thieves, looters, and traffickers. 

While any ICE special agent may work a cultural property case at some point in his or 

her career, HSI New York has a team of special agents that works exclusively on cultural 

property cases. HSI Los Angeles has also recently established its own specialized team whose 

focus will include cultural property investigations. 

Preventing cultural property in jeopardy from pillage from entering the U.S. market 

reduces the incentive to destroy cultural heritage sites through illicit excavation targeting 

marketable objects, or through removal of architectural sculpture or murals to be sold as art. The 

Department of Homeland Security (DHS) enforces the cultural property import restrictions 

agreed to in bilateral agreements the United States has concluded with 16 countries (Belize, 

Bolivia, Bulgaria, Cambodia, China, Colombia, Cyprus, Egypt, El Salvador, Greece, Guatemala, 

Honduras, Italy, Mali, Nicaragua, and Pern). These bilateral agreements protect cultural 

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property by restricting U.S. import of certain categories of archeological and/or ethnological 

material. In times of conflict, a foreign government may not be in a position to request a 

bilateral agreement under the Convention on Cultural Property Implementation Act (CPIA) of 

1983. In two such instances -the conflicts in Iraq and Syria- Congress passed special laws 

authorizing imposition of emergency import restrictions on their respective cultural property. 

However, even with import restrictions in place, a single cultural property investigation 

can result in complex cases involving multiple domestic and international ICE offices, as well as 

other law enforcement agencies, and can last for years. For example, one ofiCE's largest, 

ongoing cultural property investigations, Hidden Idols, began in 2007 and has resulted in the 

seizure of more than $150 million in artifacts. In Fiscal Year (FY) 2016, ICE worked 238 

domestic and 79 international cultural property investigations. 

The criminal networks and individuals that trade in illicitly obtained antiquities, and 

cultural, and religious items, tend to also trade in other illicit commodities such as drugs and 

illegal weapons. We see this tendency manifest in cases in which ICE investigations of 

smuggled drugs end up revealing cultural items that are also part of the criminals' cache of 

illegal items. 

Cultural Repatriation 

Naturally, our cultural property investigations ·often result in the physical seizure of 

cultural property, which must be repatriated to its lawful owners through a legal forfeiture 

process. After this process is completed, the CP AA program oversees these cultural 

repatriations, which can be a simple exchange, or a grand ceremony that commemorates the 

items' return held at the country's embassy in Washington, D.C. or even within the country 

itsel:t: These ceremonies highlight the investigations and the stories behind the objects 

themselves that were smuggled or stolen, as well as the women and men who brought the 

criminals to justice. 

Whatever the venue, returning a piece of a country's history and heritage to its people is a 

celebration, and an event in which ICE is particularly proud to participate. 

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ICE has returned a wide variety of items, including paintings, pottery, sculptures, fossils, 

and sarcophagi. In FY 2016 alone, we repatriated a first-edition of Charles Darwin's book, 

Origin of the Species, to Canada; terra cotta figures, jade implements, and a 115-million-yearold microraptor fossil to China; a dinosaur skull to Mongolia; imperial decrees to Russia; and 

several million dollars in statuary and sculptures of cultural and historical siguificance to the 

Prime Minister of India during his official visit to the United States. In FY 2017, ICE has 

repatriated property to the Dominican Republic, Egypt, Italy, and Peru, and ICE has several other 

repatriations plarmed before the end of the year. Since 2007, we have returned more than 8,000 

items to more than 30 countries. 

Trafficking of Cultural Property and Funding of Transnational Criminal Organizations 

Illicit trade in antiquities likely predates the illegal trade in drugs and weapons, two of the 

major revenue streams for transnational criminal organizations. This trade is part of a global 

pattern that includes looting and destruction of archeological sites, smuggling of cultural 

property, and the sale of illicit antiquities that often benefits international terrorist and 

transnational criminal organizations. To further understand this issue, ICE developed an illicit 

Pathways Attack Strategy (IPAS): a coordinated approach with other federal partners to identify 

this illegal activity and combat transnational organized crime. 

In September 2015, ICE Office of Intelligence (Intel) completed an analysis of 

geographic nodes that have been exploited for trafficking in cultural property, artifacts and 

antiquities. This analysis was conducted with subject matter experts from DOS's Cultural 

Heritage Center, ICE, and CBP who focus on mitigating the illicit trade of cultural heritage and 

transnational organized crime. IP AS supports larger efforts to dismantle smuggling and 

trafficking routes by: attacking criminal networks within and beyond our borders; prioritizing 

networks and pathways that pose the greatest threats; participating in and facilitating robnst 

interagency engagement; and pursuing a coordinated, regional approach that leverages fureign 

partners. 

ICE's findings support the assessment that cultural property and antiquities trafficking is 

likely to remain: attractive to transnational criminal organizations due to international demand for 

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cultural property, its profitability, and lower relative risk to other illicit goods, such as narcotics. 

Selling cultural property is seen by the perpetrators as one more way to fund their criminal 

activities, or one more way to launder the profits they have made from other illegal efforts. 

Further, the transnational nature of illicit cultural property movement is likely beyond any one 

law enforcement agency's capacity to detect and deter, since some cultural property can be 

somewhat easily obtained and transported. Certain countries, such as Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, 

and Egypt are source countries that are of greatest concern to ICE, due to the advent of the 

Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). 

Follow-on analysis performed by ICE Intel has characterized ISIS's role as 

institutionalizing efforts to profit from the looting and trafficking of cultural property in Iraq and 

Syria. The findings, which were based in part on documents recovered from the May 2015 Abu 

Sayyaf raid in Syria, identified ISIS as having established systematic procedures to extort illegal 

excavation operations to generate revenue. 

ICE Intel conducted an analysis of trends in cultural property and antiquities trafficking 

observed between FY 2015 and FY 2016. Reporting identified Middle Eastern countriesincluding Iraq, Syria, Egypt, and Turkey-as countries of origin in slightly more than ten percent 

of CP AA program investigations opened during that time frame. A body of reporting identified 

several of these countries as source and transit countries of illicit cultural property and antiquities 

looted and trafficked by terrorist groups, such as ISIS, to finance their activities. 

However, while there is clearly a connection between terrorism and cultural property 

trafficking, the connection between an individual piece of cultural property and terrorists is 

rarely clear. The nature of trafficking and limits to the data available-such as long delays before 

illicit items enter the market and ambiguous sourcing of illicit goods-complicate any attempt to 

directly link individual artifacts to specific terrorist groups. 

Conclusion 

Thank you again for the opportunity to testify and for your continued support ofiCE 

and its law enforcement mission. ICE remains committed to working with this committee and 

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to continuing our strong relationship to help prevent and combat the trafficking of cultural 

property, regardless of the source. 

I would be pleased to answer any questions. 

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