The subcommittee will come to order. Without objection pictures authorized to declare a recess of the subcommittee at any time. Members of the full committee who are not members of the subcommittee on terrorism illicit finance make it is great in todays hearing and all members will have five legislative days within which to submit extraneous materials to the chair for inclusion in the record. This hearing is entitled the exploitation of Cultural Property examining the legal activity in the antiquities of art trade pick now recognize myself for two 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 in the terrorism. Thats all you hear to discuss today. The rest of my statement will be printed into the record, and i would yield two minutes to the gentleman from colorado, mr. Perlmutter. Asked mr. Chairman. History has shown that art and cultural antiquities have always been trafficked due to their value. Trafficked. Trafficked. Got it. Sorry, trafficked, due to the valley. Sorry about im going to start over. Can i start that over . You have five minutes. Im on tv. [laughing] history has shown that art and cultural antiquities have always been trafficked due to their value. The nazi symbols installed countless works of art during world war ii which will never be fully recovered. We know that war and chaos create instability and an an environment where Cultural Heritage sites and antiquities are easily pillaged. According to end up all the black market in works of art is becoming as lucrative as those for drugs, weapons and counterfeit goods. Evidence suggests some 50,000100,000 works of art or stolen each year worldwide. Not surprisingly only about 10 not surprising only about 10 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 appeared to be working collaboratively with each other as well as International Bodies and the private sector address this problem. I would hope that u. S. Government continue to make the prevention of illegal trafficking of art a priority and encourage strong interagency efforts. Some of the questions i hope we can at today are, hike would better regulate marketplaces where these valuable pieces of art are exchange. You 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 our find related to these antiquities being used to underwrite terrorist organizations . With that i look forward to learning from our witnesses, and with that i yield back, mr. Chairman. That cherrywood now yields one minute to the gentleman from North Carolina, mr. Pittenger. Mr. Chairman, and Ranking Member thank you for hosting this important briefing today relative to the illicit antiquities trade and how it funds terror. As you know last to the task force to investigate Terrorism Financing held a similar hearing on this matter. I am pleased that our new subcommittee is continuing our work on this issue. 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, it also devastates priceless historical locations that are out of iraq in syria. We must create an enforcement and an investigator 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 and 90 isis and its uses of antiquities trafficking to fund terror. I yield back. The gentlemans time is expired. Today we welcome witnesses of the testimony of eyewitnesses. First with alyson grunder. Ms. Cohen is of the Deputy Assistant secretary for policy in the beer of education and Cultural Affairs at the u. S. Department of state. Ms. Grunder as a veteran Foreign Service officer with 26 years of experience in policy formulation advancement to bilateral and multilateral engagement. International Program Development and management, grants in budget oversight and evaluation performance measures. From 20142015 she served as minister counselor for Public Affairs of the u. S. Embassy in baghdad leading the nation Strategic Communications of Public Diplomacy outreach efforts in the wake of the 2014tthe 2014incursions of isisn syria. Dr. Brian daniels is a Research Associate at the Smithsonian Institution where he pursue scholarly work about Cultural Property protection, antiquities trade and intentional distraction of cultural or religious sites during conflict. Doctor daniels is the director of research and programs for the Cultural Heritage center of the university of pennsylvania museum. Also he is concerned with the preservation of indigenous heritage, has worked over 18 years with the native American Communities in the United States unissued relating to political sovereignty, cultural repatriation at the heritage preservation. Dr. Daniels holds a phd in anthropology in the history of the university of pennsylvania and an ma in history from the university of pennsylvania, and a ba in anthropology from San Francisco state university. Mr. Raymond villanueva is the assistant director paul made security investigations, hsi office of international operations. Is responsible for budget more than 160 million in the operation oversight of 62 offices and 46 countries, a Department Defense liaison offices with over 400 personnel. He has served in numerous key positions at hsi including Group Supervisor financial crimes and Asset Forfeiture and Removal Group in buffalo, new york, section chief for the invested finance in receipt of crime units in washington, d. C. , unit chief for the trade transparency unit in washington, d. C. , assistant special counsel agent in charge for the hsi san juan office, mostly silly Deputy Assistant director for hsi international operations. Each of you will be recognized for five minutes to give an oral presentation for your testimony that without objection each of your written statements will be made part of the record. Ms. Grunder, you are now recognized for five minutes. [inaudible] youvyou might turn on your c there. Sorry. 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 and Cultural Property by terrorist and criminal groups. Earlier i submitted detailed written testimony on the state departments efforts over decades to reduce telogen trafficking of Cultural Property that this work is mandated by multiple u. S. Laws and u. N. Conventions related to Cultural Property protection. The bureau of Education Cultural Affairs or eca has laid on Cultural Heritage protection and preservation for the state department to its Cultural Heritage center. In 1983 convention on Cultural Property implementation act, or cpi a free 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 invites a general Legal Framework in which the united States Government can combat, telogen trafficking of Cultural Property to 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 intensed to reduce incentives for looting and trafficking by keeping looted material out of the u. S. Art and antiquities market. Which is the worlds largest. To date pursuant to the cpia with conclude 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 in syria. In addition to a negotiated Bilateral Agreements to protect Cultural Property the state department serves a coordinating role for the interagency. We convene the Cultural Heritage coordinating committee, consistent with this consent of congress and the 2016 protect and preserve international Cultural Property act and chaired by the eca assistant secretary. Recent program, training for 25 custom and Border Patrol and Immigration Enforcement agents in april of this year to include a full day at the Smithsonian Museum institute where these agents had handson exposure to the artifacts that are typically trafficked. With our interagency colleagues, the state department has also been active in international matters. It was a banner month with unanimous adoption and cosponsorship of the Un Security Council resolution, 2347, the first Security Council resolution devoted by Cultural Heritage preservation. In addition they led the u. S. Delegation to the first g7 in florence italy which was an important meeting of significant Market Countries by which cooperation and preservation was the primary topic of discussion. Yes the discussion of patrimony at the hands of terrace continued. For more than a hundred years it stood as a testament for the city of mosul in iraq. This week, isis blew up the mosque, is destroying these ancient edifices in an instant. We strongly condemn this despicable act which only further proves that the terrace have no respect for the identity, culture and religion paired the United States will continue to stand with the iraqi people, the free people of syria and our partners around the world and stand against isis until they are defeated. Im happy to take any questions you have. This thing was members, Ranking Members, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you to discuss terrorist groups. 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 evidence that archaeological sites are implicated in the financing of organized collectivity and other terrorist networks. It is my view that these developments may require a restructuring. For much of the past 50 years, the illicit antiquities trade involved looters, intermediaries who purchased from looters, distributors who purchased from intermediaries. These networks have served as stable, hierarchical multi decade supply chains. Existing laws in the United States such as the Convention Act of 1983 and current Law Enforcement enforcement are treated through these illicit network. In recent years, theyve linked criminal sales. Some accounts are more credible than others. They implicated those connected with the taliban and al qaeda. There have also been suggestions of links between the insurgencies 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 asad regime and in areas held by various rebel groups. Since 2014, more attention have been given to station in syria and iraq. There are monetary figures that strain. This should not distract us that looted antiquities have been found in the possession of leaders with documentation about their direct involvement. Additionally in late 2016, the Italian Government confirmed that they had expand their organized leading activity into libya as part of a collaborative enterprise. How my traditional supply chains or the antiquities trade change in response to the interests of groups. We expect the looters to remain the same but the intermediaries purchasing antiquities from those looters to be different. They are likely to be opportunistic and to treat them as a resource similar to other items such as diamonds, oil and coal. We anticipate their participation would vary according to the underlying market value, access to distributors, collector demand and International Efforts to restrict the sale of antiquities on legal art markets. The association between looting and criminal groups is not only an international problem. Other sites are targeted in the southwest who are searching for pottery and other materials for sale to intermediaries. At the border of oregon, recent prosecutions broke up a criminal gang selling methamphetamines. At present we did not have sufficient representation of the tribal communities are basic research completed. To understand how these Domestic Networks might operate in a transnational context. There is good reason to suspect the antiquities trade is going through a reconfiguration that involves the integration of organized criminal networks and terrorist groups. Unlike the more traditional trade which archaeologists have known well, these developments require additional setting and interdisciplinary with sciences who are more familiar with research. An effort to develop these collaborations, a group of 15 u. S. Universities and museums came together to form the research network. I coordinated this effort. Our knowledge of the antiquities trade as well as the funding will only improve as Additional Research is done. Im happy to answer any questions from the committee as i am able. Thank you very much. Good morning. Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today will before moving further, we extend our best wishes and stand with the members of congress. This morning, i would like to discuss this program that is an important collaboration with our partners on this issue and lastly i would like to highlight these cases. There are a couple of reasons. It prohibits modeling to exclude cpa. Additionally they have the responsibility and tools to take an elite role in investigating Crimes Involving the import, export and distribution of stolen or looted property. Its the largest investigated Agency Within dhs and it works with tribal, federal, state and local organizations. We establish the cpa a program. The program has a threepart mission. The first one is training and education. We actually partner with the department of state and we have trained Law Enforcement officials, custom and Border Protection, prosecutors, interagency officers on the preservation, protection and investigation of Cultural Property. The second is investigation support. They help identify items that might have cultural significant and direct them to other Law Enforcement agencies. Through the program, we support 6000 special agents in more than 200 domestic officers throughout the United States. We also work through our network of International Offices with 67 embassies throughout the world where our investigators collaborated with partners which is italys force responsible for combating antiquity crime. Third is the repatriation. Weather through a simple exchanger a grand ceremony here in washington d. C. , this Event Highlights the objects themselves as well as the women and men who brought the criminals to justice. Since 2007, the department of state has returned more than 8000 historical objects or artifacts to more than 30 countries around the world. We have a program called operation hidden idols. Its located in new york and los angeles. We had the seizure of over 3000 artifacts, six arrests, five convictions and the execution of 50 search warrants. Thank you for the opportunity to testify and your continued support to the lawenforcement mission as a whole. We remain committed to working with this community and our partners to mitigate the trafficking of property regardless of the source. Finally i would like to provide examples of the incredible history we have preserved and returned. Thank you very much. If i were going to make this more personal, to give an example, about five years ago i received a call from a friend of mine who is one of the officers in one of the tribes in mexico. It seemed, just surfing the internet they had come across a mask and it hit him from his tribe, 150, 200 years before and so he went online and bought it, 23000 was the purchase price. After being on an indian reservation, it went down and he missed the second one. His description to me about the effect is what really caught my attention. He and his wife have 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. Then it began to penetrate that we need to be doing more so, how long does it take to track and prosecute the case, just a simple case, just roughly. I know we have a lot of questions here. Thank you for the question. All cases are different. We look at cases on a casebycase basis. This case, we talk about Cultural Property and antiquities and following the explanation of the doctor, these organizations are extremely compartmentalized from the looters and can be quite complicated. They say the top left artifacts, whats the value on that . As far as the values, i have to say, we do use a value system but its actually for the legal side of it,. Im trying to get the stimulation. What is the financial stimulation. What would Something Like that cost on the black market. It depends at which level of the market thats actually being trafficked at. An object like that, at the top left, it might be worth tens of thousands of dollars on the black market. Okay. So you have basically writes in 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 . I imagine he may have an opinion on that. You mind repeating the question sir. So once an article has been gotten 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 . So that piece, according to. I didnt say that. If i said it stays out there circulating in the country, nowhere to track, people are identifying it, theyre insuring it, they put it on the inventory, but theres nowhere to track if there is. To the point, youre absolutely correct. Outside the United States our ability to track that is limited. We rely on the odd markets, the vendors and the supply chain to notify Law Enforcement. But you are correct. Quickly, can you address that if you have an opinion. Primarily in the area of training and building awareness of Illicit Trade, we were very closely with dhs on that sort of activity. The stimulation is always money and so i read your testimony and were focusing on repatriation. Sometimes we focus on prosecution. It seems to me the better, just my perspective, the better way is affecting the value. I imagine open sourcing, people out there who are aware , if they had some way to enter into a database, block chain analysis or whatever it is that we see this property being taken, theyre not even in the product distribution or anything like that, but you can imagine if we appeal to the collectors, surely one out of a hundred would have some sort of moral sense, i cant let it go by that ive been a coached by something i think is illegal. They begin to identify, maybe scattered here, there, down the future and now we see that its here and its there. It drives the value down but if you can affect the value, people are less likely to get in. If they dont think they can get their Million Dollars back there not to put it into a very significant piece. I think we have to be thinking in some way to interdict the value. That will be much easier than the prosecution or the inventory tracking. Lets think more about it at my time has expired. So, my experience with all of this comes mostly from watching tv and madam secretary, and the different episodes theyve had on stolen art and the destruction of antiquities and that kind of stuff. I apologize for not really understanding this. Doctor daniels, there are a couple sentences in your testimony today. I would like to inquire a little bit more so we actually understand, to the best of our ability, how this works and how eventually, from these antiquities, from the artworks and artifacts, somebody gets money to do bad things. The theft is bad and then they underwrite activities thats detrimental. You talked about our workshop that you conducted back in 2014 before they advanced into syria. You say we learn more about the cultural risks, the professionals who are trying to study these antiquities, id like to know little bit more about that. What they did was they have a tax, in effect, across the territory where they allow looters to come in to a particular area, take stuff in there was a 20 tax. Id like to know more about that. During your testimony and in your report, you talk about nevertheless, such types should not distract the sprint i want to know what you meant by that. Thank you very much. So, let me take the first question about the workshop we held in 2013. They were in areas outside the asad regime that work caught in the crossfire and deeply concerned with preserving Cultural Property under their jurisdiction. Was focused on northwestern serious and the mosaics in the bed city area. What we learn from them was they were deeply concerned about extremism and concerned about barrel bombs by the asad regime. This was their primary concern about how they can protect it from an area of bombardment and this was an example of what are discussions focused on. As far as the tax that we learned about that was being conducted, 20 tax 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 looting. I understand the committee has been briefed by the fbi on the development. What this represented was an organized way for an organization to benefit from the antiquities trade. Let me just stop you. Did someone hire and art appraiser to say this is what this stuff is worth and then the militants, whoever they were, they say weve appraised this in your past 20 , you can take it. Generally speaking they brought them into their organization to appraiser. When i mention the hype in my remarks, one of the concerns that we have is speculation about how much an entity or Terrorists Organization earns from the antiquities trade. I have seen numbers up to 600 million or 2 billion have been floated. That strains my imagination. I think its incumbent upon us as archaeologists to research the kind of claims we make because it is such a strong claim to talk about the looting of antiquities and the market. We need to be realistic about the kinds of monetary figures we share with members of congress and others. Thank you. I yield back. The germans time has expired. The gentleman from North Carolina is recognized. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I do like colorado. Thank you to you for being with us today and 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 were any policy tools that we can pursue to ensure that we can put an end to the terrace and there antiquities trade. Thank you congressman. We welcome the engagement of congress in this really important issue and i just wanted to add to the comments of doctor daniels that the exploitation of Cultural Property by terrorist groups like isis is dual edged. We just cant underestimate the value of growing up and destroying the sites. Is there anything we can be doing more in congress to facilitate our capabilities . As you know, we set up the Cultural Heritage committee in response to congress in last summers legislation, and we are Going Forward with that correlating body to strengthen our enforcement as much as possible. To your question, to date we have treated the antiquities trade primarily as a problem of a trait and restrictions to reduce the looting and reduce the u. S. Markets for those materials. Thats an important first step. To date there has not been any really creative thinking about how we would address the issue of antiquities looting around financial crimes. There hasnt been the kind of conversation about what laws or policies would actually look like. What technology is being used right now to address the illicit trafficking. Are we sophisticated enough in our technology and do we have adequate capabilities. Its primarily based on facial recognition and shadows as a technology. Those kind of technologies dont actually translate well to flat surfaces so were not quite at that level of technical sophistication to make an app for that, as it were. What about trade based, do they use that as a means to transfer these objects. From that perspective, it would take monies to buy a commodity and then ship that across international boundaries. Yes, it is very possible. Shipping out something from one country to another. Absolutely. Years shaping that money into a commodity and shaping that commodity and therefore laundering so its a possibility they are working with them to do that kind of work. To we need to strengthen our capabilities, 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 it. We work very well with the International Community. A little differences that some administration is not lawenforcement, when the u. S. , but we work with the National Police force under the agreements that are in place around the world. My time is about it. Thank you to everyone here. This is a very tragic subject. I was wondering, in terms of regions of the world in the secondary market, arab states, the gulf states and north america, justin rough terms. Are there trends in that . How effective have we been in western europe and north america to at least restrict purchases to welldocumented, 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 past couple years. I think that the short answer to that question is that generally speaking it takes 6 9 years for the antiquities to surface publicly at the end stage of the distribution. What we do know about the antiquities weve seen looted from syria more broadly that are not possible to link to the terrorist organization itself, is that they are generally being shipped through Southeast Asia and countries like singapore, indonesia and thailand and back to markets in western europe. Western europe predated the u. S. In placing import restrictions on looted material from syria and the European Union was quick on this particular issue. In germany, very much has been very focused on clamping down on this kind of trade. We are not able to parse out in percentages where some material is specifically going to different Market Countries and market destinations. While we can say is we suspect this material is in the pipeline from transshipment records that weve seen from Southeast Asia. We also can suspect that the United States is the largest art market nation. Other significant art market nations include china, russia and the gulf states. Our suspicion is that we may see some kind of restructuring as these materials begin to surface and they may not necessarily appear in western europe as we mightve expected after the iraq war. Certainly in other more modern art market, china is a huge player. It would not be surprising to find them equally large. We have no way of even guessing the percentage of stuff that is shipped to Southeast Asia and doesnt even had for north america. We have not been able to review the transshipment record from a Research Perspective and i really dont know the extent to which there may be ongoing investigation. How important is the documentation of an artifact to the preliminary research weve done shows that it will increase the value of the object around 40 . You can count that as a discount if the object is through the documentation. And are fake artifacts, is the technology to make them advanced and thats watering down the value of non documented artifacts or not yet. One of the interesting things about the Syrian Crisis is that there has been flourishing antiquities market inside syria that in many ways showed up first in the United States and western europe. These are very clearly fake. There is enough expertise that exists within the national art market to actually determine the difference between a fake and real object but im not sure its had any kind of affect on the prices. That is a funny way of maybe encouraging that its in dilute diluted. A couple years ago they started issuing gold coins with the intention of destroying the u. S. Dollar. I was wondering, i assume theyre worthless except for their intrinsic value. Have they started to acquire value as just a coin of another dying country . Im not seen any evidence to date of extensive collection of those coins although i have heard from lawenforcement officials outside the u. S. That there is a collectors market for some objects in the golden state. My time is up. Thank you. The chair recognizes the gentleman, mr. Hill. Thank you chairman. Thank you to the Ranking Member for bringing this important subject back and i certainly want to thanked mr. Daniels for his work around the United States and the repatriation of cultural artifacts in coronation with our native americans around the country. Its been a great 20 years of work that the smithsonian has done. When i think about the subject , to me with my reading, destruction, civil, malicious seems an equal or greater motivation than making money for the islamic state. One of my favorite books last year was reading the bad librarians of timbuktu and i commit to my colleagues as a terrific book. The relentless effort to destroy thousands of years of manuscripts just because they could. I hope youll recommend to the Treasury Department that when the secretary goes to the golf this year to discuss this issue be put on his agenda as i have no doubt, if you wanted a relic from the labonte, seems like that would have high value with funding. Following up on doctor fosters comments, where is the major leakage of cultural artifacts . Are they primarily exiting through turkey to these other markets youve described, or to the coast somewhere on the mediterranean . Talk to me about where you think we should be most vigilant in looking for the leakage. Thank you for the questions. The turkish Law Enforcement has actually stepped up to the Current Crisis about site looting and the number of artifacts that have been recovered are extraordinary and point to the effectiveness of the lawenforcement response. My own view on this is that much of the large antiquities, not the small antiquities, but the large antiquities were smuggled from syria into iraq to mosul. Some of the members may be aware that not all flights stop during the crisis, and by suspicion, my working theory is that many of those artifacts were smuggled, particularly the large plane flights and then to the Southeast Asian roots that weve actually seen crop up. Some smaller artifacts, especially early in the conflict were smuggled out through the Regional Networks that have long been established and routed through lebanon which has been a major point, a sales. 4 antiquities in the middle east for the better part of the last 75 or 100 years. The department of state knows where to place emphasis on where to step up working with customs people and experts on how to target the stopping of those who do get shipped. On a separate subject, we center all of our Money Laundering work on the Banking System because we always believe people will try to credit whatever they had to cash and therefore the nicest place to track that is in a financial institution. Of course we know now in Todays Society thats not necessarily the most accurate. Do you think the International Art community should be required to file suspicious activity report someplace or among each other in a selfregulatory or cooperative basis . Im interested on your view, how you think those red flags should be used in may be a more effective way. That is an interesting question. On them money side of the house, art dealers and business transactions, if they receive more than 10000 in cash they will have to do the form 8300. As far as other reports that entails changing legislation because theyre not a Money Service business, there are in arch dealer. We refer to experts in terms of suspicion as it pertains to the art market. As far as the money side of the house they are not known as a Money Service business, however they are in place to contact Law Enforcement and some have done that quite proactively when they come across differing artifacts that are questionable. They are the experts. If we think of using that analogy, if you think in terms of the art dealers and think of the current line of defense, then art dealers are the first line of defense when it comes to the selling of looter artifacts and we are doing a lot of work with the community in terms of outreach, using their expertise, but i will refer to my colleagues at the table on the Cultural Properties. Thank you. The gentlemans time has expired. I recognize the john and from nevada. Thank you. Thank you for being here. Were talking about such an important subject. I just have a couple questions, in your opinion, how has asis approach to collecting payment from looters changed since the Coalition Airstrikes in 2014 and begin to choke off other sources of revenue including the sale of oil. I think two things on this. I think the information that we understand about how this market actually operates became much more fragmented. In my view that was since the Coalition Airstrikes began. In some ways, we are operating in an environment where its not entirely clear. What i am aware of is about the time the Coalition Airstrikes began, he became harder to move material. 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 bike grossly overvaluing or undervaluing and porting to a fact that maybe the expertise they were relying on had escaped weather wasnt as much coordination because of the distraction caused by the Coalition Airstrikes. Got it. Your testimony notes that your agency has an International Presence at 67 different embassies and consulates. How many of them have extra expertise dealing with artifacts and is additional training for such personnel wanted . Thank you for the question. Yes, a part of our training, we actually train some of our agents stationed abroad. There are some that are heavily engaged. Our office in rome works very closely with our Form Partners on that. We do have subject Matter Experts at her office in d. C. We work very closely with the system and smithsonian in the department of state. Many come to the case with allegations. Even if they are not trained they do have Resources Available immediately, people we can do boy and people who can talk to them on the phone to help guide the investigation. Thank you. What portion of the funds that are raised from direct looting by isis itself versus the taxes and licenses on the civilian population. And think one of the issues with the amount of money identified from isis is that were really not clear right now about parsing out the exact dollar figure from isis. The best information that existed two dates on that is the Financial Information that was retrieved and again my understanding is that the committee was briefed on that particular raid in closed session. Thank you. I yield the remainder of my time. The chair recognizes the gentleman from somewhere east of the mississippi. That would be the great state of maine. If you havent booked your Summer Vacation to maine, you should do so now. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for being here today. This is a concern to all americans who want to make sure we preserve World History and culture. We spent a lot of time talking about this Illicit Trade in the middle east and other parts of this great earth, but what about right here in america. We have a problem in our great state of maine within opioid and heroin addiction, and epidemic. Its a real concern affecting many families and theres been a little discussion today about Illicit Trade and antiquities right here in america. I would like to ask you to weigh in. Do you have any feel for how much of this Illicit Trade has an impact on illicit drug trade here in america . Thank you for the question. We believe there are commonalities between all the different forms of illicit trad trade, but i would have to leave it to the experts. Thank you, mr. Daniel. Right now we really do not have a very good sense about the relationship between native american looting and the illicit drug trade except for the many native american property cases have drug ties. So it is happening. It is deftly happening. My own view on this and my working theory on this is that the looting actually provides a form of base capital for drug producers to begin their operation. I see. Weve got to choke off the financing to anyone whos trying to sell this poison to our kids and our family whether its maine, New Hampshire or any part of the country. You have any information for the panel on this . You mentioned financial as it pertains for drug trafficking. We bring over 40 years of financial investigation expertise. I spent many years as a Money Laundering investigation. Thank you for doing that but we have a connection between the illegal drug trade in america with respect to our historical artifacts here within our borders. At this point we have not seen investigations on cpa a specifically on opioids, but i would have to limit my comments to that. Thank you. Lets get to another issue. Tell us a little bit about how a freeport works, and how a freeport might have an impact on the trade of illicit artifacts in the drug trade across the world. Generally speaking, we expect the antiquities trade to follow the freeport. Its gallery spaces for distributors to actually ship. Our warehouse is a different port of entry around the world. Thats correct. So these warehouses serve as the showrooms and conservation centers, they serve as areas for the longterm holding while the increase in value, or are they concern that there looting disappears over passage time spent you have any comment on that issue in particular . I agree with doctor daniels. What i want to highlight is that its a little different in the u. S. To those abroad. There heavily regulated. Custom Border Protection do great work and anything going inandout is subject to document such as country of origin, evaluation, very similar to when there bringing merchandise into our commerce or out of the United States. Does the united States Government have any jurisdictions in those free zones in other parts of the world . Only if it pertains to merchandise coming into our commerce. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I yield back my time. Thank you for being here. The german fields back. They recognize the gentle lady from new york, ms. Maloney. Thank you chairman and Ranking Member for holding this important hearing. 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, they took over 100 pieces of the historic parthenon in athens and, under very questionable circumstances, they sold these artifacts known as the parthenon sculptures to the British Museum where they remain today. This is probably the most important antiquities increase developed by greek artists, owned by the greeks, and yet a representative of an occupying nation sold them. He certainly didnt have the right to sell them. So, in effect, they were stolen. Ive introduced the resolution that calls for the two countries to negotiate a return of the parthenon marbles. Its cultural significance to the greek people. The story of the parcel parthenon marbles mirrors the world problem in the modern antiquities market. They took these artifacts and were able to profit. Like today, there are terrorist organizations. [inaudible] the terrorists and criminals would not see these artifacts as potential sources of revenue in the first place. I have two questions to ask the panel. I would like to start. Isabel lack of agreedupon and enforceable standards in the antiquities market that makes it so attractive to criminals and terrorists to sell these artifacts or are they using these market because they happen have very valuable antiquities. I would say, when were talking about Cultural Property and trafficking, were talking about the oldest crime the book of law. We have civilization and we have the smuggling and looting of arts and antiquities. What i would say is, you talk about the area i talk about occupying, we do have, i feel comfortable incorporating the laws we have. Its working with the International Community to prevent the looting. Do we have standards to prevent this, do they have standards and laws against this . What are the standards that can prevent this from happening. One of the issues in the antiquities market, and its existed for a long time, much of that time theres been oversight and Due Diligence required in the passage throughout the supply chain and onto collectors. What this has changed in recent years and has worked well to enforce the memorandum of understanding that we have these specific countries. Our principal issue is that that does not address International Coverage and there is a real lack of standards about what constitutes the documentation required or legal title for the sale of an object through that supply chain and the expectation to receive that. How would you create the International Standards . Through the head or how would it be created . What entity, United Nations . How would you make this happen internationally. Right now, the approach has been very much piecemeal, country by country according to the laws of the lesser title in each country. To think we could go to the United Nations with this effort. Im not sure there would be concurrence in the United Nations for such a project. In that way im a realist about whats possible, but i think there are certainly possibilities that this committee and the United States congress can explore in regard to the title. Thank you. The chair calls on mr. Royce, chairman of the Foreign Relations committee. You think the chairman. The Foreign Affairs committee Ranking Member, last year protecpast the protect and conserve property act and the goal was to deny funding to isis. It was also to improve our ability, our governments ability to work with our partners there in syria and in iraq. Since that time, was at the museum last year end saw the distraction of the great mosque in mosul and i was going to ask, id asked the panel with the Practical Impact of this legislation has been, both as it relates to stopping the Illicit Trade and in the coordination among the respective agencies. Are there other countries experiencing conflict in which illicit antiquities might enter the u. S. Markets just as these antiquities taken now by isis pulled. Thank you congressman rice. The state department has stood up the committee in response to congress from last summer and weve had three meetings of the senior interagency committees since last summer. I think it normally has increased coordination among our agencies at a senior level. One result 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 ancient site of numeral. Thank you for drawing attention and your bipartisan leadership on this particular issue. I also want to emphasize the importance of the increased coordination capacity that has increased across the interagency what i also want to add is that the protect and preserve property act was specific to syria in order to choke off the terrorist funding. Afghanistan, nigeria, south susa sudan have conflict and antiquities that have the possibility to enter the flow of commerce. I recently returned after speaking with Law Enforcement, and after my conversations i am was more concerned about the nexus between looting and al qaeda and afghanistan i am about dae sh in iraq and afghanistan. I will defer to my colleague colleagues. No further comment. The german yields back. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you Ranking Member for appearing today. Late last month they quoted a customer who said its still surprisingly easy to smuggle stolen items here. What steps are they taking to disrupt this pathway into this lucrative market . We mentioned training. Understanding this crime and the smuggling, the routes, the techniques, what have you is important to both. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] we are talking about how it seems to provide people with information that reaffirms what they already think but its not like facebook said hey you are a conservative. I think you are conservative and im showing you conservative content. They say im going to shape things from the people you know and im going to show you the pages you like them when you start clicking on those things im going to figure out who you seem to like and keep showing you more of that. If facebook had not done that we wouldnt be having this conversation because they wouldnt have grown to the scale to which they grew today. This is a transition period and i think cities will play a major role of fighting against populace and the ways cities can change representative democracies is seen as a Great Machine to change whats going on. Thursday an indepth look at the Opioid Epidemic including Ohio Attorney general mike dewine who is suing several Drug Companies for their marketing of the opioid painkillers. What is different about the problem that we have is how pervasive it is. It was at absolutely everywhere. Its in our smallest communities, its in our cities, its in our most affluent suburbs. Friday conversation with Supreme CourtJustice Elena kagan. You said at the beginning of our conversation we are not a pure democracy. We are a constitutional democracy and that means the judiciary has an Important Role to play in policing the boundaries of all the other branches and back can make the judiciary and unpopular set of people when they say to a governor or a president or congress, no you cant do that to coast its its not within your constitutional power