A modern day Egyptian curse - looted antiquities to fund terrorism

Authorities see it as a modern day ancient Egyptian curse - the curse of cultural theft for cash to fund terrorism. The U.S. Department of Justice ranks art and antiquities crime behind only drugs and arms in terms of highest-grossing criminal trades and it also fuels the arms trade, drug trafficking, and terrorist activity. Ideological crime by dissidents has reached plague proportions and today fundamentalist terrorist groups rely on looted antiquities as a major funding source...

With telling results...

Few know it, but Egyptian Mohammed Atta, who flew the first fatal plane into the World Trade Centre tower, was involved in selling looted antiquities as a funding source for the nine-eleven attacks.