The Friday Afternoon Challenge’s latest headbanger! Today: Art in the News!

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37. #4: Antiquities smuggled from Syria to Lebanon (2 arrested)

It took a lot of searching, but it finally turned up (after dropping 'Buddha' from search terms and instead looking for 'stolen relics').

Two Held in Lebanon for Smuggling Relics from Syria Cemeteries, Churches

Fri, 2013-05-17

The General Directorate of General Security on Thursday announced that it has busted a network that has been smuggling antiquities from Syria into Lebanon.

“After the GDGS received a tip-off and after reporting to the Public Prosecution, a unit from the directorate's information affairs bureau raided a hideout containing a quantity of stolen relics,” it said in a statement.

“After assigning an expert from the Ministry of Culture, at the state prosecutor's request, it turned out that these relics date to the Byzantine, Roman and Aramaic eras,” the statement added.

During the raid, General Security agents managed to arrest two members of the smuggling network, “who confessed that the antiquities were stolen from cemeteries in Palmyra and churches in Homs.”

The General Security is pursuing the rest of the network's members in order to arrest them and refer them to the relevant judicial authorities, the statement added.

http://www.lebanonews.net/content/two-held-lebanon-smuggling-relics-syria-cemeteries-churches