Buyer Beware: US Market for Ancient Asian Art Still the Wild, Wild East

Art and antiquities have financed some of the last century’s worst actors — from organized criminals to drug cartels, mafia syndicates, the Nazis, the Khmer Rouge, the IRA, al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and the Islamic State. Yet public policy still treats the illicit trade in cultural property as a white collar, victimless crime. This must change: cultural racketeering is a not just a threat to our world heritage, but to human rights and global security.

History, through the Cambodian Civil War, offers valuable lessons for facing this ongoing crisis today. In the 1970s, in the shadow of the kingdom’s celebrated 12th century temple of Angkor Wat, fighting erupted between government forces and the Khmer Rouge. Decades of conflict, genocide, and foreign occupation followed.

The war triggered an organized trade in blood antiquities, which helped bankroll further campaigns of violence. Centuries worth of sacred relics were trafficked from the “Killing Fields,” and then sold overseas to the highest bidder, with few questions asked. And while many disappeared into the black market, countless masterpieces were laundered into America’s top auction houses, art galleries, and museums — where they remain today.