SL prime target of artifact smugglers

Chamikara Weerasinghe

Smuggled objects
* Buddha statues
* Coins
* Paintings
* Pictures

The lack of regulations to enforce the Cultural Property Act has made Sri Lanka a prime target of antiques and artifact smugglers. Sri Lanka Customs’ Bio Diversity Cultural and National Heritage Department Deputy Director Samantha Gunasekera yesterday said many foreign antique thieves have got away with thefts in Sri Lanka owing to the laxity of regulations for implementing the Cultural Act of 1998.

Rare collections of specimens of fauna and flora have also been smuggled to several countries over the years on this account, Gunasekera said.

He said during the last several years, artifact thieves have smuggle many antiquities of archaeological and historical value. Among the smuggled objects are Buddha statues, ancient inscriptions, coins and objects of ethnological interest, paintings, pictures and products recovered in recent archaeological expeditions.

He said an antique smuggler who carried out an operation to smuggle 72 Buddha statues out of the country got away after paying a Rs 50,000 fine owing to the situation.

The racket involved billions of dollars in the antique-theft market, Gunasekera said.

The Bio Diversity Protection Unit recently found that the suspect was supplying these items to a person who had been an employer of a foreign embassy in Sri Lanka.

A Swedish National involved in the same racket also paid Rs 50,000 after being caught. It appears they have local supporters in their payrolls to carryout their smuggling operations in the country. Artifact looters and smugglers are attracted to Sri Lanka because they can buy all the support they need to carry out their action at lower rates from the people inasmuch as they are attracted to the lower fines they have to pay in being caught in their acts, he added.

Gunasekera stressed the importance of implementing the Cultural Property Act in full force to prevent artifact robbery by foreign smugglers and the importance of amending some provisions in the Act to discourage Artifact thieves with severe fines.