China starts a nationwide campaign on antiques smuggling

Beijing. Jul 20. Silkroadnews - The State Administration of Cultural Heritage of China has promised to launch the largest nationwide campaign against the smuggling of relics amid growing number of crimes in this area, Global Times reports.
The state administration reported it is cooperating with the Ministry of Public Security to attract local officials to participate in the six-month campaign against the theft, sale and smuggling of cultural relics.
Vice Minister of Public Security Li Wei warned the tactics used by criminals in relics smuggling have become more professional, and the gangs usually cooperate with the mafia.
China intensified its efforts to combat crimes related to cultural relics. Liu Yang, a lawyer from Beijing who worked on the Chinese relics return from abroad, said the tomb raiders have made more excavations than archaeologists, and stolen antiquities were usually sold abroad and purchased by private collectors and large museums.
Many exquisite artifacts, stolen and illegally exported from the country during the invasion of China in the XIX century, still remain abroad.
In November, China established an online platform to provide information on stolen or lost cultural relics to help the country to return them from abroad, while encouraging the public to join the protection of relics. More than 10 million Chinese cultural relics have yet to be recovered.