On December 15, 2022, the Smithsonian Institution partially granted our Freedom of Information Act administrative appeal and provided us with a list of organizations that participated in a March 2021 online Workshop to train US law enforcement "to combat trafficking in ancient coins." Back on May 4, 2021, the ACCG filed a FOIA administrative appeal, after the Smithsonian withheld all 37 pages of responsive materials. In our FOIA request we sought to shine light on the identity of participating organizations, what was being taught, and whether there was any suggestion that just because a coin was unprovenanced it should be treated as “stolen,” an inaccurate assumption that is being made by proponents of import restrictions on coins. While the Smithsonian’s FOIA appeal decision declined to provide us with the training material as law enforcement sensitive, it did provide us with the list of participating organizations to the Workshop. The invited organizations included the American Numismatic Society, Baylor University and Shenyang Financial Museum from the People’s Republic of China, but did not include the American Numismatic Association, the International Association of Professional Numismatists, the Professional Numismatists Guild, the Ancient Coin Collectors Guild or other collector groups. This unfortunately ensured that Customs officials received information only from those entities and individuals who have advocated for broad import restrictions on coins in the past.
Responsive document.pdf
