Authorities have seized 14 ancient Egyptian artifacts being “illegally smuggled” into the U.S., prosecutors have said. Prosecutors said the items were transported to various airports from overseas between August 2020 and April 2021. Among them was an “Old Kingdom Limestone Funerary Statue,” believed to be from Saqqara or Giza, and worth approximately $6 million. The items were allegedly bound for private collectors, with at least one known to be in Maryland. They included “amulets, stone figurines,” and a vase. U.S. Customs and Border Protection looked at “numerous parcels from overseas shippers transiting through airports in Anchorage, Alaska, Cincinnati, Ohio, and New York City,” a Maryland Attorney’s Office statement said. They were labeled misleadingly, it added, purporting to contain erroneous items such as “home decor,” “stone garden statue,” and “decoration.” Evan Campanella of Homeland Security said, “The deceptive practices used to smuggle these treasures into the United States not only violate our import laws but also undermine efforts to preserve and protect the integrity of cultural history.” The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Maryland secured a default judgment for forfeiture of the smuggled treasures.
Read it at U.S. Attorney’s Office. District of Maryland
