To preserve the past for future generations, the Antiquities Coalition is tackling crimes against culture head on.
From ancient times, cultural heritage has been a casualty of crime and conflict. As long as there have been tombs, there have been tomb raiders. As long as there have been civilizations, there have been enemy armies bent on plundering them.
However, in the modern world, this destruction is taking place on a scale never before seen in history. Cultural racketeering — the organized looting and trafficking of art and antiquities — has become a multi-billion dollar criminal industry that spans the globe. Unless we act now, it and other crimes against culture, like cultural cleansing, threaten to erase entire chapters of our shared human story.