There’s a traditional African market in Nouadhibou, Mauritania where along with goats and herbs, you can also buy valuable meteorites collected in the Sahara desert. Scientists are concerned that if private collectors snatch up the rocks, they’ll never be made available for research purposes. Dealers smuggle the meteorites out of the country and then sell them on eBay. From the BBC:
“People come here because they collect stones and rocks,” one market trader told me.
“Nomads bring them from the desert. They say the stones have fallen from the sky…”
John Thorne is a young American traveller who has had first-hand experience of smuggling meteorites from Mauritania.
“I actually helped out some friends who live in Algeria and who wanted to sell some of their meteorites abroad. They needed a hand getting them out of the country,” he told me.
“We decided that we would meet in Nouadhibou because it’s lawless: the only law there is money and you can do whatever you want, as long as you’re prepared to pay the right person for it.”