In Sri Lanka, a 69-year-old tour guide was arrested on Monday on charges of having attempted to smuggle Sri Lankan artefacts to the United States through the Sri Lankan post courier service. The man was arrested after the Postal department opened suspicious parcels addressed to recipients in the USA, and which were found to contain valuable Sri Lankan artefacts of archeological value. The suspect's house in the Kotahena district of Colombo was raided, and there Archaeological Department officials discovered a large quantity of artefacts. Investigations are continuing. The name of the addressees were not revealed.
There is a video by Pradeep Dilrukshana here. I am going to surmise from the look of some that not all of the items shown are genuine dugup artefacts, though it seems that enough are to charge this guy. This seems to be another case where a tourist guide is accused of having turned dealer. One might hazard a guess that such a guide might be selling stuff to people he's spotted as "interested in history" and posting them to their home address on their behalf so they do not have to risk carrying them in their luggage.
Lahiru Pothmulla, 'Video: US-bound artefacts discovered' Daily Mirror 4.06.2013.
(PS whatever happened to Mormon elder John Lund? Did he go back to clear his name?).
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