A Smuggler's Den Of Antiquities

During a 30-year career in the underground antiquities trade, Sami Guneri Gulener claims to have slipped hundreds of priceless artifacts through Turkey's porous borders. "I can pass a 10-ton statue through the eye of a needle," he boasts over cigars and whiskey at an Istanbul cafe.

Now, although he denies having any regrets about his job as a transporter, or "jockey," of stolen and illegally excavated artifacts, Gulener has decided to use his insider's knowledge to help Turkish authorities crack down on a trade that is fast stripping his country of much of its cultural heritage. Objects worth an estimated $200 million disappear from Turkey each year, plucked from the burial mounds and ancient cities of Anatolia for sale to First World collectors. Professing an interest in slowing the outflow, dapper 47-year-old Gulener provides Turkey's Culture Ministry with smugglers' names and other information. "I'm not ashamed of anything I've done," he says. "But I'm a patriot. The bureaucrats should know how easy [smuggling] has become before it's too late and everything disappears." Gulener says he receives no pay for the information.