What do museum looters/burglars do with stolen goods?

Question

For example, in the 2003 Iraq/US war, a lot of stuff was looted from the National Museum of Iraq.

What do they do with it? I don't expect that they want to keep it for themselves. But they can't just walk into the Smithsonian and say "Hey, I have this vase from 2000 BC, will you buy it?"

So what happens to the items when they're obviously stolen?

Answer 1

They sell it on the black market

Answer 2

Of course anything made of precious metal is just sold as scrap gold/silver.  Jewels would be pried out of their settings and sold separately.  Sad, sad, sad!!

Answer 3

quite often they have buyers (crooked collectors) arranged before they steal the stuff,  Although the National Museum of Iraq would have been different as the thefts would have been opportunistic, so probably sold on the black market.  

Answer 4

They sell them to crooked collectors.

Answer 5

The buyers used the proceeds to help pay for the current occupation of Iraq.