Dealers set up shop in nearby villages to buy artifacts, which were then smuggled into Hong Kong, and then into the international market - dispersed to Japan, Thailand and throughout the world. I went to China in 1994 to produce guides to the country's major archaeological sites. Now I'm seeing the same material showing up on the market. As one of the world's leading Mayanists, Ian Graham has seen the most remote corners of the Central American jungle. When I started working in Guatemala in the '60s, almost everything was intact.
Victories are few, but sweet.
In August, Graham learned that a collector was planning to sell part of a Mayan stone carving. He recognized the masked human figure as a piece stolen from northern Guatemala in the 1960s. When U.S. Customs agents and attorneys for the Guatemalan government came calling, the collector agreed to surrender the piece. Even armed guards and double-locked gates at archaeological sites have failed to deter the thefts. In Peten, hundreds of sites have been totally overrun.