Getty Museum to Return Trafficked Goods to Greece

Greece has secured the return of two ancient antiquities from the J. Paul Getty Museum, they are to be returned by the end of March after the government contested the legality of their removal from the country.^[1] Greek Culture Minister Giorgos Voulgarakis said the Getty has agreed to return a 4th century BC gold funerary wreath from Macedonia and a statue of a young woman made of Parian marble, after the government contested the legality of their removal from the country.^[2] The agreement for their return was officially signed on Tuesday, February 6.^[3] Voulgarakis said this would create new prospects for relations confirming the climate of trust and mutual understanding between the Getty Museum and the Greek Culture Ministry.^[4]

The wreath, which was discovered during an illegal dig of an ancient Macedonian tomb in northern Greece, was sold to Getty officials for 1.15 million dollars in 1993.^[5]Greece is currently cracking down on the illegal trade in ancient artifacts and has promised to return all objects which have been proven to be illegally smuggled out of the country.^[6] It was uncertain if the return of the gold wreath and the marble statue would end a Greek criminal investigation over the alleged theft of the wreath.^[7]

The American museum has been involved in an international art smuggling scandal after a former antiquities curator, Marion True, was charged last year in Rome with conspiring to deal in looted antiquities.^[8] Her villa on the island of Paros has been raided twice in the past two months, where Greek detectives discovered 18 unregistered antiquities.^[9]

Trafficking in antiquities is a serious transnational crime that forbids any 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.^[10] Greece is a party to the Convention.

“Cultural property” is defined as an article described in article 1(a) through (k) of the Convention.^[11]This includes property relating to history,^[12] products of archaeological excavations,^[13] and antiquities more than one hundred years old.^[14]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] Getty museum to return two ancient antiquities to Greece by March, Jurnalo, 07 February 2007.
^[2] Id.
^[3] Id.
^[4] Id.
^[5] Id.
^[6] Id.
^[7] Id.
^[8] Id.
^[9] Id.
^[10] 19 U.S.C. § 2607
^[11] 19 U.S.C. § 2601(6).
^[12] 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.
^[13] Id. art. 1, para. c.
^[14] Id. art. 1, para. e.