Trafficking in Antiquities—Peruvian Artifacts

US Immigration and Customs Enforcement [hereinafter ICE] special agents seized more than 300 pre-Columbian Peruvian artifacts in Florida.^[1] The artifacts, some of which date back to 1500 BC, were discovered during the execution of three federal search warrants at several South Florida locations.^[2] Among the items recovered were a 3,500 year-old clay vessel, an 1,800 year-old clay statue, and a burial shroud link to ancient Peruvian royalty.^[3]

Trafficking in antiquities is a serious transnational crime. 19 U.S.C. § 2607 states that no article of cultural property which is documented as belonging to the inventory of a museum, a religious or secular monument, or a similar institution in a party to the Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property, may be imported into the United States. Peru is a party to the Convention.

“Cultural property” is defined as an article described in article 1(a) through (k) of the Convention.^[4] This includes property relating to history,^[5] products of archaeological excavations,^[6] and antiquities more than one hundred years old.^[7]

The enforcement of the ban on importation is found in 18 U.S.C. § 2315, which states that any person who possesses any goods which have crossed the United States boundary after being stolen can be fined, imprisoned for up to ten years, or both.

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[1] ICE, Press Release: More than 300 Pre-Columbian Peruvian Artifcacts Recovered by ICE and BSO, Sept. 26, 2005, available here.
[2] Id.
[3] Id.
[4] 19 U.S.C. § 2601(6).
[5] Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property, Mar. 3, 1973, art. 1, para. b, 823 U.N.T.S. 231.
[6] Id. art. 1, para. c.
[7] Id. art. 1, para. e.