This is a Job for Jack Gordon!

The latest from Florida:

A Florida undercover operation has busted a group who destroyed state lands from the Keys to the Panhandle to illegally unearth and sell historic Florida artifacts, such as arrowheads, stone tools and pottery.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, FWC, with support from the Florida Department of State, completed a statewide investigation Wednesday that found more than 400 felony violations. They charged 13 individuals.

“The suspects were part of a criminal conspiracy,” said Major Curtis Brown, head of the FWC’s Investigations section. “Their crimes pose serious environmental, economic and cultural consequences.” Undercover FWC officers infiltrated the operation and gathered evidence to charge the subjects, stopping their illegal business and protecting both the lands and the cultural resources. “This is not the situation of a family out hiking and finding an arrowhead or other artifact that they want to take home,” Brown said. “We did not target the casual collector. These subjects intentionally destroyed lands and rivers for their own personal gain. Some even made their entire living on these illegal sales.” Many of the illegally obtained artifacts were offered for sale online or at trade shows. The asking prices for some of the looted pieces were as much as $100,000.

These guys not only dug gaping holes in archaeological sites on land, they dredged the bottoms of rivers to bring up artifacts, doing lots of damage in the process. So kudos to the folks at Florida Fish & Wildlife.