US arts and craft chain to hand over artefacts smuggled from Iraq

A LEADING US chain of arts and craft shops is to hand over thousands of smuggled artefacts from the Middle East that it bought for a Bible museum.

As part of a settlement, Hobby Lobby has agreed to pay a $3million (£2.3million) fine and forfeit 5,500 items that originated in the area now covered by modern-day Iraq.

Prosecutors accused the company of violating federal law by importing the clay tablets and tokens from the UAE and Israel as “tile samples”. The trade in artefacts from the region has come under intense international scrutiny in recent years as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) plundered historic sites to fund its war machine.

There is no suggestion terrorist groups were involved in this case but Hobby Lobby admitted it had not fully understood the complexities of acquiring such ancient items and had relied on the expertise of dealers and shippers, which led to some “regrettable mistakes”. Steve Green, the company’s president said: “We should have exercised more oversight and carefully questioned how the acquisitions were handled.”