Hobby Lobby is settling federal antiquities smuggling charges by paying $3 million and returning thousands of clay artifacts from Iraq. The company said it purchased the items because of a "passion for the Bible," and Hobby Lobby President Steve Green admitted they "should have exercised more oversight and carefully questioned how the acquisitions were handled."
In 2009, Green and a consultant went to the United Arab Emirates, where they looked at engraved seals, clay impressions, and thousand-year-old cuneiform tablets. The criminal complaint says Hobby Lobby's lawyer was warned that the items might be looted, and stressed the importance of making sure their country of origin was marked on customs forms. Instead, prosecutors said, 5,500 artifacts from Iraq were shipped without proper documentation, with labels calling them "ceramic tiles" or "samples" from Turkey and Israel. Hobby Lobby also didn't pay the dealer who sold the items, but wired $1.6 million to seven different people. Green said moving forward, Hobby Lobby will further investigate such purchases.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
New York court tosses Trump's $500M fraud fineSpeed Read A divided appeals court threw out a hefty penalty against President Trump for fraudulently inflating his wealth
-
Trump said to seek government stake in IntelSpeed Read The president and Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan reportedly discussed the proposal at a recent meeting
-
US to take 15% cut of AI chip sales to ChinaSpeed Read Nvidia and AMD will pay the Trump administration 15% of their revenue from selling artificial intelligence chips to China
-
NFL gets ESPN stake in deal with DisneySpeed Read The deal gives the NFL a 10% stake in Disney's ESPN sports empire and gives ESPN ownership of NFL Network
-
Samsung to make Tesla chips in $16.5B dealSpeed Read Tesla has signed a deal to get its next-generation chips from Samsung
-
FCC greenlights $8B Paramount-Skydance mergerSpeed Read The Federal Communications Commission will allow Paramount to merge with the Hollywood studio Skydance
-
Tesla reports plummeting profitsSpeed Read The company may soon face more problems with the expiration of federal electric vehicle tax credits
-
Dollar faces historic slump as stocks hit new highSpeed Read While stocks have recovered post-Trump tariffs, the dollar has weakened more than 10% this year
