The meteoric rise in ‘space stone’ smuggling
For one shepherd, finding a meteorite provided a welcome boost to his finances. But the unregulated trade in these cosmic objects is causing disquiet.
Hindiya al-Ashaibi in Benghazi
Abdul Hamid al-Fituri, 49, was grazing his sheep in Tocra, northeastern Libya, when he came across a small, heavy stone with a strange shape. It was black with a smooth, silky texture and odd protrusions and holes in some parts.
Al-Fituri’s curiosity about his find, which took place in January 2024, led him online. “With my younger brother’s help, we searched for its identity via the internet and social media sites,” he says. “I discovered it was a meteorite, very rare and valued at thousands of dollars, and could be sold through Facebook groups.”
Offers poured in for Al-Fituri’s stone on “Selling Meteorites in Libya”, a Facebook group with more than 11,000 followers. A buyer who identified himself as Syrian contacted Al-Fituri on WhatsApp, asking him to weigh, pass a magnet over, and film the stone under direct sunlight. After seeing the video, he offered $1,700, which Al-Fituri refused. Eventually, the shepherd agreed to sell the 9kg meteorite for about $3,300 to a trader who sent an associate with cash.
Libya is one of the world’s best sources for large, well-preserved meteorites. Most of the space rocks are found further south of Tocra: in Al-Ghani, a limestone plateau stretching nearly 200km by 60km. Al-Ghani’s hard limestone surface lacks quartz sand so the meteorites are not eroded by windblown particles and its hyper-arid climate helps to preserve them for millennia with little weathering.
More than 1,200 meteorites have been found here.
A digital black market
Since the February 2011 revolution, when longtime ruler Muammar Gaddafi was toppled, Libyan authorities have struggled to control the southern border, a 1,790km stretch touching Sudan, Niger, and Chad. This has created opportunities for international networks to illegally search for, excavate, and filch space stones.
The smuggling often includes Libyans, Syrians, Moroccans, and Turks, who meet in obscure social media spaces where prices for meteorites are set in auction-style bidding.
“We continuously follow stone sales offers via Facebook,” says online dealer Siraj Ahmed*. From experience, he can now judge a stone’s potential significance from its colour, size, patterns, and crust. Smoothness; irregular protrusions; and yellow, green, or white dots suggest the stone is a pallasite meteorite.
Buyers seek these for rare jewelry and ornaments, Ahmed says. On FossilEra, an online retailer, a 176g slice of a pallasite meteorite is listed for $12,000.
Meteorite prices typically range from $150 to $700 per kilogram but a rare find can fetch much more. A 22kg stone from Mars sold for a record $5.3-million in July at a New York auction by Sotheby’s. The stone was found near Kefkaf, Agadez, in northern Niger two years ago. The sale drew controversy, leading Nigerien authorities to open an investigation into the possibility it was illegally traded.
In the meantime, Niamey suspended all exports of gemstone and meteorites until stricter controls are put in place.
That’s the kind of proactive action Libya now needs, according to lawyer Nihal al Barasi. He called on authorities to monitor social media and pursue the networks trading Libyan meteorites, calling it theft and looting of Libya’s natural wealth. But Libyan law is silent about the practice.