Hobby Lobby Smuggling Scandal

[Jerome]

Ancient cuneiform tablets from the Middle East were being imported by the craft company as "hand-crafted clay tiles" of minimal value before customs officials caught on:

http://nypost.com/2015/10/27/billlionaire-hobby-lobby-owners-probed-in-looting-of-artifacts/

Background:

Private Collectors To Open 'Museum of the Bible' Near Smithsonian in Washington D.C.

When the Green family, founders of national retail chain Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., purchased their first biblical artifact in November 2009, they never expected to assemble in only a few years what is now one of the world’s largest private collections of rare biblical texts, objects, and artifacts.

Known as the Green Collection, the compilation of around 40,000 objects includes some of the rarest and most significant biblical texts and artifacts ever assembled under one roof. Highlights of the Green Collection include cuneiform tablets dating from the time of Abraham, Dead Sea Scroll fragments, biblical papyri and manuscripts, Torah scrolls, and rare printed Bibles.

 

[Jerome]

UPDATE:

Hobby Lobby Put Under Federal Oversight for a Year and a Half, Fined $3 Million, Forced to Relinquish Artifacts It Smuggled Into U.S.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) will return several thousand ancient artifacts, including cuneiform tablets, cylinder seals, and clay bullae, to the Republic of Iraq. The artifacts were smuggled into the United States in violation of federal law and shipped to Hobby Lobby stores, a nationwide arts-and-crafts retailer. The shipping labels on these packages falsely described the cuneiform tablets as tile samples.

On Wednesday, those artifacts — nearly 4,000 in all — were returned to the Republic of Iraq at a celebration at the residence of Iraqi Ambassador Fareed Yasseen....The event marked the end of the international investigation of black-market antiquities and the Green family, the evangelical owners of Hobby Lobby crafts stores and collectors of biblical artifacts

a settlement with Hobby Lobby last July required the company to forfeit the artifacts, pay a $3 million fine and submit to federal oversight for 18 months, Donoghue said, adding that the agreement “served as a deterrent” to others considering making deals on the black market