Do you know the difference between a tweaker and a twigger? Allow me to introduce you to a particular corner of the shadowy world of the illicit trade in antiquities, a lucrative global business which generates more revenue than the international trade in heroin. Although there are many venues in which antiquities are bought and sold legally—the regular auctions at Christies and Sotheby’s, for example, galleries such as the Athena in New York, and reputable dealers around the world—there are many who prefer to acquire and sell antiquities illegally (without provenance or recorded history of origin and ownership), either for the purpose of acquiring items that would not be available legally or in order to reap greater monetary rewards. The recent legal battle between New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Italian government over the Euphronios krater, for which the museum paid $1 million to a dealer in illicit items, and other objects removed illegally from Italy, was a prominent event in the upmarket end of the trade. There are, however, less public and far seamier levels of criminal activity involving antiquities. One of them operates in the American Southwest, with its rich Native American cultural heritage and abundance of archeological sites.
Tweakers are methamphetamine addicts who loot archeological sites for artifacts that they can sell or trade for more drugs. In April 2004, a Bureau of Land Management (BLM) case agent for archeological crime in New Mexico recovered from a meth dealer a rare pair of Anasazi leggings made of human hair. (Permanent Anasazi communities in the Southwest date to around 100 A.D. Skilled farmers and craftspeople, they abandoned their cities around 1200 A.D. Scholars believe that they became the ancestors of the various groups of Native
Americans living in the Southwest today.) The BLM agent reported that most of the people he had been arresting were tweakers, rather than the old-fashioned history buffs and treasure hunters. In the trailer home of the meth dealer were found one and one half pounds of meth with a street value of approximately $500,000, 16 pounds of marijuana, and five loaded firearms. Also present were 30 to 40 intact prehistoric Anasazi pots. This find was regarded as an example of how the drug trade has overlapped with the illegal artifact trade. In the Southwest, artifacts can be looted from remote public lands near impoverished communities with severe drug problems. There is in the region a network of galleries and trading posts that operate on the fringe of illegality. They can launder artifacts for sale to shady private collectors and dealers. With so many archeological sites to victimize, some of the addicts dig for artifacts. They are called twiggers.
An undercover operation in the late 1990s and early 2000s revealed a network of twiggers linked by a single meth dealer. Twiggers are changing the way sites are looted. Their addiction makes them obsessive, erratic, and often violent. Rather than loot selectively, the way professional artifact thieves will do, selecting the items which will bring the best price, twiggers will strip a site, thus increasing the damage to our cultural legacy and obscuring the archeological record the site might have yielded. Online auction sites provide a market for bits and pieces of artifactal material. Twiggers loot with no knowledge or regard for the objects being taken.
Tweakers are methamphetamine addicts who loot archeological sites for artifacts that they can sell or trade for more drugs. In April 2004, a Bureau of Land Management (BLM) case agent for archeological crime in New Mexico recovered from a meth dealer a rare pair of Anasazi leggings made of human hair. (Permanent Anasazi communities in the Southwest date to around 100 A.D. Skilled farmers and craftspeople, they abandoned their cities around 1200 A.D. Scholars believe that they became the ancestors of the various groups of Native
Americans living in the Southwest today.) The BLM agent reported that most of the people he had been arresting were tweakers, rather than the old-fashioned history buffs and treasure hunters. In the trailer home of the meth dealer were found one and one half pounds of meth with a street value of approximately $500,000, 16 pounds of marijuana, and five loaded firearms. Also present were 30 to 40 intact prehistoric Anasazi pots. This find was regarded as an example of how the drug trade has overlapped with the illegal artifact trade. In the Southwest, artifacts can be looted from remote public lands near impoverished communities with severe drug problems. There is in the region a network of galleries and trading posts that operate on the fringe of illegality. They can launder artifacts for sale to shady private collectors and dealers. With so many archeological sites to victimize, some of the addicts dig for artifacts. They are called twiggers.An undercover operation in the late 1990s and early 2000s revealed a network of twiggers linked by a single meth dealer. Twiggers are changing the way sites are looted. Their addiction makes them obsessive, erratic, and often violent. Rather than loot selectively, the way professional artifact thieves will do, selecting the items which will bring the best price, twiggers will strip a site, thus increasing the damage to our cultural legacy and obscuring the archeological record the site might have yielded. Online auction sites provide a market for bits and pieces of artifactal material. Twiggers loot with no knowledge or regard for the objects being taken.
While convictions for drug dealing are common, they are difficult to obtain for artifact theft. Federal agents are thinly spread across the Southwest and proving that an artifact was illegally taken from federally owned land is difficult. Prosecutors will plead out or drop looting charges if they can get a drug conviction. Therefore, there is little additional risk to a narcotics dealer who diversifies into the antiquities trade. Another problem is the difficulty of quantifying or assessing the extent of artifact theft. Some law enforcement personnel see looting as a victimless crime.
The meth-antiquities connection is currently distinctive to the American Southwest. The looting of archeological sites and the illicit trade in antiquities, however, is a global problem, often involving large criminal organizations which generate millions of dollars of revenue. For additional reading, I recommend The Medici Conspiracy by Peter Watson and Cecilia Todeschini, published by Public Affairs, 2006.
The meth-antiquities connection is currently distinctive to the American Southwest. The looting of archeological sites and the illicit trade in antiquities, however, is a global problem, often involving large criminal organizations which generate millions of dollars of revenue. For additional reading, I recommend The Medici Conspiracy by Peter Watson and Cecilia Todeschini, published by Public Affairs, 2006.
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