Alaraby documentaries are known for documenting several Arab and international issues. Motif was approached with the challenge to create and deliver documentaries for Alaraby TV to highlight one of those issues.

Motif’s creative team did in-depth research on racketeers operating in Syria, responsible for illicitly selling Syrian antiquities. The subject has been highlighted by Interpol but Motif’s team decided to tell the untold story.

We had two working teams, A team in London conducted interviews with archaeologists and antiquarians. And another team took the dangerous part of revealing the stealing operation.

Three enthusiastic and capable journalists, pretending to be customers, set out on a journey to unravel the route through which smugglers secretly transported the artifacts.

The film reveals conversations with illegal dealers and smugglers. Using hidden cameras, the team showed the smuggling process of taking stolen goods across the border into Turkey, Britain, and Canada.

Gaining the smugglers’ trust was indeed both challenging and very dangerous but we revealed the crime of stealing the history of Syria.