No Arrests Announced as ICE Officials Seize and Send Cultural Objects to Peru

ICE: Artifact returned to Peru on July 12.

United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) reported no arrests or indictments during a repatriation ceremony yesterday that returned stolen and smuggled cultural objects to Peru. 

In a press statement, ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) said that it mounted an “undercover Internet operation” and recovered the artifacts “in five separate investigations in . . .  New York; West Virginia; Wilmington, Delaware; and Austin and Houston, Texas.”  HSI concluded that the objects were illegally imported into the United States in violation of U.S. customs laws after having been illegally removed from Peru.

ICE agent watching over a monstrance.

With assistance from the U.S. Department of Justice and INTERPOL, HSI seized and sent to Peru nine 18th century religious paintings, pre-Columbian pottery, an Andean textile, a monstrance, a Moche jar, and a tumi blade.

ICE Director John Morton observed that "[t]he plundering of cultural property is one of the oldest forms of organized cross-border crime and has become a world-wide phenomenon that transcends frontiers.” Deputy Attorney General James Cole added, "Like other criminal acts, cultural property crimes are borderless and require a coordinated law enforcement response among countries.... [The objects] were stolen by those whose selfish acts and greed sought to deprive a people and the public of their cultural treasures."

No mention was made during Thursday's public ceremony held in Washington, DC of any arrests, grand jury investigations, indictments, or continued law enforcement probes into the alleged criminal activity.  HSI's seize and send policy has been critiqued because of its disproportionate focus on the repatriation of cultural objects over needed efforts to deter transnational cultural heritage crime by prosecuting antiquities traffickers when they violate U.S. law.

HSI outlined details of its investigation in its press statement:

“Of the objects returned July 12, two of the Cusco oil paintings – Saint Ignatius of Loyola, and Virgin and Child – were sold at an auction house in Austin. Seven other Peruvian antique paintings were being sold from a Houston gallery. The pre-Columbian Chimu-Inca whistling pot and Andean textile were being sold on eBay. In an undercover Internet operation, HSI special agents in West Virginia targeted sellers of illicit pre-Columbian artifacts operating from this Internet site. The monstrance was listed for sale at Christie's auction house in New York and HSI special agents discovered it was consigned by an art collector associated with museums in Puerto Rico and Denver. HSI's investigation revealed that the monstrance had been stolen from Saint Stephen the Martyr, a small Catholic church in Yaurisque, located in the Cusco region of Peru. The Moche ceramic jar and the bronze ceremonial knife were consigned by an estate trust in order to be sold at an auction house in Madison, N.J., and necessitated grand jury subpoenas issued by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Delaware.”

Assistant United States Attorney David Hall from the Delaware U.S. Attorney's Office was responsible for investigating two of the Cusco school paintings involved in the case, according to a statement released by that office.  An image of one of the paintings appears at right.  Hall is a 2010 SAFE (Saving Antiquities for Everyone) Beacon Award winner.

The repatriation ceremony comes one month after the United States renewed import controls covering Peruvian cultural property determined to be in jeopardy from plunder.

CONTACT: www.culturalheritagelawyer.com

CPIA Import Restrictions on Peruvian Artifacts Renewed

Gold figurine from Peru.
Source: U.S. State Department

The Federal Register today published a notice by the Department of Homeland Security extending import restrictions on archaeological and ethnological materials from Peru.

Earlier this year, the Cultural Property Advisory Committee (CPAC) met to consider Peru's request to renew import controls on at-risk cultural property under the federal Cultural Property Implementation Act (CPIA), which gives force in the United States to the 1970 UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property. Scholars with first-hand knowledge of archaeological site looting in Peru submitted information to CPAC.

The U.S. Department of State's Assistant Secretary for Educational and Cultural Affairs "has determined that conditions continue to warrant the imposition of import restrictions," reported the Federal Register. "Accordingly, the restrictions will remain in effect for an additional five years, and the CBP [Customs and Border Protection] regulations are being amended to indicate this third extension."  The regulations go in to effect June 9, 2012.

The importation of restricted Peruvian cultural objects into the U.S. without authorization could result in their seizure and forfeiture as well as possible criminal prosecution. The types of materials that remain subject to American import protections can be found on the State Department's image database.

CONTACT: www.culturalheritagelawyer.com

Peru Fails to Stop Spain in Odyssey Marine Case

Outside the US Supreme Court

The case of Republic of Peru v. Kingdom of Spain et al. (11A795)--related to Odyssey Marine Exploration, Inc. v. Kingdom of Spain, et al.--saw a last minute emergency appeal quashed Thursday. Peru made the final effort to stop coins, believed to be from the galleon called Nuestra Senora de las Mercedes, from returning to Spain. Spain has insisted that the so-called Black Swan treasure was taken unlawfully by salvor Odyssey Marine because the company impermissibly removed the items from a ship flying the Spanish flag.

US Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas denied Peru’s appeal on February 23, just two days after that country filed its application to stay. Peru made claims in federal court that the coins were minted in that country.  Justice Thomas also denied Odyssey Marine's application for a stay on February 9.

The high court's decision clears the way for the 17 ton load of coins to be transferred to Spain.  Odyssey Marine's stock fell nearly 4% on Friday.

CONTACT: www.culturalheritagelawyer.com

Comments Submitted to CPAC in Cyprus and Peru MoU Extension Requests

Kourion, Cyprus. Mosaic from the house of Eustolios.
Source: Lapost. CC.

Comments have been submitted to the Cultural Property Advisory Committee (CPAC) regarding an extension of the cultural property Memoranda of Understanding (MoU) between Cyprus and the United States as well as Peru and the United States.  The original MoUs authorized by the Cultural Property Implementation Act lasted for five years and placed import restrictions on designated archaeological and ethnological material.  There were a total of 336 comments electronically submitted to the State Department regarding Cyprus’ request and 23 comments regarding Peru’s request.

A sampling of the comments submitted in support of Peru’s request were published in a prior post.  Comments regarding the Cypriot request appear below.

Writing in support of Cyprus’ request for an extension of the MoU, Professor A. Bernard Knapp, Honorary Research Fellow at the Cyprus American Archaeological Research Institute remarked:

“As a retired archaeologist . . . I am keenly aware of the importance of this MoU, which prevents archaeological objects from categories described in the Designated List from enter the US unless they have an export permit issued by the Government of the Republic Cyprus, or documentation that they left Cyprus prior to the effective date of the restriction. In my view, this MoU represents one of the most important documents protecting a country’s indigenous cultural heritage that the US has ever approved; it is an extremely significant tool in Cyprus’s efforts to prevent and combat the looting of its cultural heritage and the illicit trafficking of Cypriot antiquities to the United States, which has one of largest art markets for such antiquities in the world.”

“Signed originally in 2002, amended in 2006 to include Byzantine Period Ecclesiastical and Ritual Ethnological Materials, and renewed in 2007 to include Cypriot coins (end of 6^th century BC to AD 235, the Government of the Republic of Cyprus now requests another amendment, to include Ecclesiastical and Ritual Ethnological Materials representing the post-Byzantine period dating up to AD 1850. They do so in order to assure a coherent legal framework in line with the Cyprus’s Antiquities Law. This request is based on numerous recent cases involving the illicit trafficking of ecclesiastical and ritual ethnological material that dates later than AD 1500.”

Elizabeth Bartman, President of the Archaeological Institute of America, also wrote in support of the MoU renewal:

“The archaeological evidence from such Bronze Age towns as Kourion [in Cyprus] attest to an active trade and a high level of technical production of ceramics, metal, and stone sculpture.  Unfortunately, many of these distinctive artifacts are much prized by collectors today; the ravaging of the island after the Turkish invasion in 1974 has long been recognized, but looting continues today with loose controls in the northern zone permitting the export of both archaeological and ecclesiastical material.  Because of their random findspots and portability, coins are especially vulnerable to looting and so deserve protection under the Memorandum.”

The comments opposing Cyprus’ request came from the ancient coin collecting community, which does not favor the inclusion of coins in any import protections.  For example, Philip Griest wrote:

“Coins and modern paper money have always been fluid currency. The exchange of money for goods and services internally and internationally has exsited since ancient times. To now require that a specific coin be repatriated because of it's artistic worth seems illogical if not illegal. The money belongs to the person that earned it and then, when spent, to the person who traded for it; no matter goods, services or an exchange of currency. To return such items to the nation that minted the coin is to restrict trade and create an illegal market for the coin. What else can be done to these thousands or hundred (sic) of thousands of coins and artifacts. They can't all end up in museums. Has comman (sic) sense ceased to exist in our nation.”

And Glenn Saylor, Jr. wrote:

“I am against import restrictions of Cypriot coins into the United States. There are a large number of collectors of these coins in the United States. We carefully conserve these coins for future generations, and share our knowledge about these coins with not only our fellow collectors, but also the general public. Most of these coins are common, so Cyprus should have little diificulty obtaining needed examples for their museums. Since these coins are so common, it is hard to establish their providence. The net effect is that these common coins will not be allowed import into the United States. All rebutable (sic) coin dealers and collectors are against the looting of archaeological sites. However, I believe other methods can be used to address this issue. For instance in Great Britian (sic), the Government has the first right to buy new coin finds at market price. If this policy was implimented (sic) in Cyprus, their Government would have the first opportunity to purchase any rare coins that were found.”

CONTACT: www.culturalheritagelawyer.com