Federal government returns treasure trove of seized ancient coins to Greece

The United States has returned a trove of ancient coins to Greece as part of a cultural property repatriation program, federal officials announced Wednesday.

The 51 items represent the largest collection of its kind repatriated by Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), the division of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) that handles cross-border crime.

“Antiquities trafficking is a multi-billion dollar criminal enterprise, but when traffickers steal these antiquities from a country, they despoil the cultural heritage of a nation – purely for their potential to generate profits,” said R. Sean Fitzgerald, HSI. Special Agent in Charge Chicago, in a statement.

The parts landed under HSI’s control after Customs and Border Protection intercepted four shipments entering the United States without the proper documentation.

HSI officials and Greek government officials, including Alexandra Papadopoulou, Greece’s ambassador to the United States, held a ceremony last week to formalize the return.

“As these pieces return to Greece, where they belong, I am confident that they will be an exciting and powerful exhibition as part of our culture, our shared identity, and our close relationship with the United States,” says Papadopoulou.

According to ICEthe agency returned cultural objects to more than 15 countries on 20 occasions in 2022 as part of its cultural property, art and antiquities program.

The materials returned ranged from prehistoric fossils to works of art stolen from Jews during the Holocaust.

“HSI has the unique skills and determination needed to disrupt this concerning practice. At HSI Chicago, we have a dedicated unit with agents specially trained to track down lost and stolen pieces, contributing to the approximately 20,000 artifacts that HSI has recovered and returned to more than 40 countries since 2007,” Fitzgerald said.

There is no clear estimate of the scale of the global antiquities trade, although repatriations like the one carried out by HSI number in the hundreds of millions per year.

However, this trade can be overestimated or underestimated in monetary terms, further complicating strategies to combat antiquities smuggling.

“There is, for example, the vexatious claim that the illicit trade in cultural objects is valued at billions of dollars a year and ranks, along with drugs and weapons, among the three most serious illicit trades. This claim has been repeatedly disproven, but never seems to go away,” the researchers wrote in a paper. Journal of Field Archeology 2021 article.

However, the monetary value of antiquities often pales in comparison to the cultural value attributed by the countries of origin.

“It is often extremely difficult to assign a specific monetary value to an ancient historical piece,” Fitzgerald said. “Despite this, as a testimony to the world’s oldest democracy, Greek cultural assets – according to HSI – are considered invaluable. »

And according to a report published According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, “2022 could potentially be a turning point in the fight against crimes against cultural heritage.”

This report reveals increased international cooperation and large-scale returns of cultural goods that expose key players in global trade.

“Many returns come from multinational operations that have ensnared prominent art collectors and dealers accused of looting and running trafficking networks in plain sight from luxury addresses in major capitals,” they said. write the researchers.

“Investigations into cultural trafficking, some motivated by large-scale leaks of financial documents, including the FinCen files and Pandora Papers, have implicated some of the art world’s elite and its major cultural institutions. »