THE SANDSTONE COPS

The trip did the trick. Over the next few weeks, Thai police dredged more than 300 antique stone carvings, some of which may have been fakes, from a pond in the former capital city of Ayutthaya. Police arrested Sunthorn Sowapee, 62, a noted Thai sculptor, and 14 others in connection with the seizure. Hundreds of other items meant for sale as antiques were confiscated from shops in Bangkok, mostly at the upmarket River City shopping mall. In one incident, customs intercepted 43 stone statues shipped from Singapore - evidence that the Lion City has become a transshipment point from Cambodia's main port of Sihanoukville since security along the usually porous Thai-Cambodian border was stepped up early this year.

Thailand is the main regional conduit between treasure sites and antique markets in the U.S., Europe and Japan, which have belatedly begun clamping down on the smuggling of stolen artifacts. For their part, Thai authorities seem surprisingly serious in their war on the illicit trade, which has dangerously harmed the national heritages of Cambodia, Myanmar and Thailand. Over the past six months or so, nearly 1,000 items weighing hundreds of tons have been seized in operations stretching from the Cambodian border to Bangkok. The estimated value of this clandestine industry, in which fake antiques also abound, is a complete unknown. As Richard Engelhardt, the Bangkok-based regional adviser for culture at UNESCO, puts it: "It's an underground market like drugs and arms."

Cambodian authorities, too, are weighing in on the illegal trade. King Norodom Sihanouk recently called for a halt to the destruction and neglect of Cambodia's historical sites, expressing grave concern about the pillaging of temples in Angkor. The king appealed to the "great countries to be informed of this disaster so they can come and save Angkor." His daughter, Princess Bopha Devi, 56, who is Cambodia's minister of culture and a friend of Thai Princess Sirindhorn, has been mobilizing exceedingly scarce government resources to safeguard her nation's historical sites.

The collapse of the Khmer Rouge last year may help the princess's efforts to preserve Cambodia's cultural heritage. In May, authorities retrieved 61 stone carvings from the home of Ta Mok, Pol Pot's most brutal general, who lived in the town of Anlong Veng, the guerrilla movement's headquarters until 1997. With Ta Mok awaiting trial in Phnom Penh and his comrades all but vanquished, the threat to Cambodia's artifacts is likely to come from Thai business interests. Logging companies have cut access roads into remote forests, where most of the nation's ancient ruins lie. Thai loggers transport antiques in heavy trucks, aided by Cambodian security officials, who are notoriously corrupt, not to mention woefully ill-equipped to handle the crisis.

The Thai government's crackdown on the theft and smuggling of antiques is something of a surprise - even an outrage - for many people. Until recently, the authorities never bothered to enforce local laws pertaining to antiques - which may help explain why some members of Parliament are among the nation's leading art collectors, paying as much as $270,000 for top artifacts. Besides, unlike Cambodia, Thailand has yet to sign the 1970 UNESCO convention on preventing illicit traffic in cultural property. As a result, argues the owner of an antiques shop in Bangkok's River City, "dealers have no conception of having done anything wrong. A few prosecutions 15 years ago by the Fine Arts Department would have taken things in a different direction."

But the tide is definitely turning - and the media is beginning to play the role of a catalyst. For some time now, Thailand's Channel 7 has been showing Khun Dej, a TV series based on a novel by Thai archaeology buff Sujit Wongthes. When he isn't managing a hectic love life, the hero of the show, Khun Dej, is rescuing (often violently) images of the Buddha and amulets from thieves working for rich art collectors. Aside from the entertainment, the series alludes to a fact that just about every tourist to Thailand knows: the country is a major market for stolen - and fake - artifacts.

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