Receiver of stolen goods, tomb raider, plain old thief.

It's a good thing he gave the plates back to Moroni-Nephi, because if the church still had them they would have to return them to the Native American rightful owners.

Yesterday I bought a book called Stealing History: Tomb Raiders, Smugglers, and the Looting of the Ancient World by Roger Atwood. It struck me later that Smith was involved in what is now the illegal antiquities trade--"every aracheologist's worst nightmare."

I don't know who owned the Hill Cumorah in the late 1820s, but I'm certain it wasn't the Smith family. I suspect it was New York State or the U.S. government, but it could have been privately owned. I don't remember anywhere in the story where Joe got permission to dig for buried treasure that rightfully belonged to the property owners.

Those mummies and papyrus looted from Egyptian tombs? How embarrassing for the church if Egypt demanded their return. How about those Kinderhook plates? Are they in the Smithsonian along with the seer stones?

Yep, Stealing History--that pretty much describes the Book of Mormon.