Looting Mali’s History. As demand for its antiquities soars, the West African country is losing its most prized artifacts to illegal sellers and smugglers

Looting Mali’s History. As demand for its antiquities soars, the West African country is losing its most prized artifacts to illegal sellers and smugglers

According to Malian officials, skyrocketing prices for West African art and artifacts, along with the emergence of sophisticated smuggling networks, threaten to wipe out one of Africa’s greatest cultural heritages. “These [antiquities dealers] are like narcotraffickers in Mexico,” says Ali Kampo, a cultural official in Mopti, a trading town in the Inland Niger Delta. “They’re running illegal networks from the poorest villages to the European buyers, and we don’t have the resources to stop them.”